Feeding Strays
by Abilxey
Summary: Scout is being forcibly dragged out of the infirmary screaming out his lungs and reaching out towards the broken body on the table. He feels the guilt swell up inside him as he realizes that because of his actions, this was inevitable. Why had it been so hard for him to let go?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: The following story was rated T for violence, adult themes and the use of strong language in intense and frustrating situations and occasionally within casual dialogue.**

**I also don't own Team Fortress 2. Valve, please don't sue me.**

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November was coming to a close, and the winter chill was slowly creeping in. The air was becoming rather frigid, leaving Scout thankful he had upgraded his typical attire to longer and warmer pants and a red sweatshirt. The team had been stationed in Gold Rush to defend against the BLU's, who were trying to blow their base up. Considering that his class was more meant to capture initial points and not really keep others for doing so, Scout was less than enthused about the week he was going to spend getting his ass kicked.

Though this didn't stop him from getting a smug grin on his face when he heard the Administrator announce that the setup time had begun. There was one thing he'd always look forward to when battling on particular maps. He shot straight out of the respawn, zipped right past the first checkpoint, and kept sprinting until he was standing in front of the gate that had separated the BLU's spawn from the battlements. He couldn't help but smile as he pulled out the Atomizer, a sleek aluminum bat with a black ribbed grip, complete with the Bonk! logo plastered on it and begun to continuously bash it against the gate.

"Need a dispensah here!" He yelled in the most obnoxious way possible. The enemy soldier taunted him by standing by and saluting him with his hand in an L shape. This actually got a slight chuckle out of Scout and he started beating on the gate more forcibly. "Need a telepotah here!"

His heart skipped a beat when he saw his rival, a young man of similar physical stature as Scout, ran toward the gate with a titanium baseball bat in hand.

The two had a certain ritual they always preferred if the mission and environment allowed each other to face each other like this.

"Mission begins in thirty seconds," the Administrator announced.

Scout cracked his knuckles, "Ya ready to get yo ass dominated, pally?"

"No, are you?" His rival wasn't quite the best at making the most original comebacks. The two then continued on in beating the crap out of the gate.

"I'm gonna beat ya head in so hard, you'll feel it in the next respawn!" Scout sneered.

"Well, respawn's not going to be able to fix your face when I shoot that dumb smile off it!"

"With what aim, pally? Bonk!" Scout's could feel his heart pounding excitedly in his chest. Other members of both teams began to join in the beating of the fence, and hurling insults and threats at each other. Pyro madly smacked his ax against the gate mumbling incomprehensible words, along with Demo and the BLU Engineer shouting jeers at each other. Scout was beginning to feel the rush of adrenaline course through his body. He's rival had a crazed look in his brown eyes. They both couldn't wait to kill each other.

"Need a dispensah here!" Scout yelled out in his mad frenzy.

"Need a sentry here!" His counterpart screamed back.

"Mission begins in ten seconds!" Scout's teammates begun to back away from the gate along with the BLU team getting out of sight of the spawn entrance by pressing close to the walls. Except the two scouts stood their ground and continued to beat the gate. They both nastily grinned at each other.

"Five..." The Administrator began counting down. His rival replaced his baseball bat with his scattergun to get ready for his attack, but Scout kept the Atomizer in hand though he was no longer beating on the gate with it.

"Four..." Scout planted his feet apart firmly on the ground. He pointed the Atomizer to the far wall of the BLU's respawn like he was predicting where he'd hit a baseball that was being pitched to him. His rival cocked an eyebrow.

"Three... Two..." He brought the end of the bat over his shoulder and bent his knees and quickly adjusted his arms to be in the perfect batting position.

"One..." The gate doors opened. The rival had aimed his Scattergun at Scout but before he could pull the trigger Scout swung the bat with as much force as he could. It struck his rival right in the temple and Scout could see his skull beginning to shape around it, and then released it as his body flew across the room and hit the far wall.

Scout couldn't help but break out into laughter after watching his rival fly through the air. "You su-" Was all he got to say before the enemy sniper sent a bullet through his brain.

A strong shiver ran throughout his body as he found himself standing in respawn. He shot straight out of the doors, still feeling ecstatic about his amazing kill. Once he had reached the heat of the battle he felt ambitious enough to rush the enemy medic from behind while he was healing the BLU heavy. This didn't go too well, though; he missed his first shot which had alerted the medic to defend himself. He immediately turned around and slashed Scout's guts open with his bone saw, and the heavy finished him off with his mini-gun. The second time he was taken out by a mini-sentry that he didn't see in time. The third time a pyro scorched him to death.

With every death he's adrenaline rush was whittled away and was completely diminished when he was trying to bait out his rival from behind the cart so he could be taken out Engie's sentry only to have his rival get the better of him and shot him in the face. He sighed as he left respawn for the fifth time and moved towards the fight in a much slower pace.

"The cart is nearing a checkpoint!" The Administrator announced frantically. This didn't motivate Scout to pick up his feet at all, though, he knew that he wasn't going to be much help especially once that cart got in that choke point just past the checkpoint. As he headed towards the fight he tried to assure himself that his team was holding them back and that the Engineer probably still had his sentry up, so they were still doing fine. As he approached the choke point he was just in time to see a red level three sentry explode and the Engineer's body falling from the second floor of the building he had set up in. Scout was now frantically looking around as he realized that no one on his team was left on the battlefield.

"Ah crap," Scout muttered. The BLU pyro began to rush him with flames spurting out of the end of his flame thrower. Not wanting to be sent to respawn so soon, he took off running but not before the tips of the flames had gotten a lick of his clothing and decided it liked the taste as it went on to completely engulf him in flames. He howled in pain as the flames were eating away at his clothes and skin. He was running frantically to the nearest health pack but at the rate, he was burning he wasn't certain he could make it until he saw Heavy, Demo, and Pyro barreling towards him.

"Help!" he yelled. Heavy and Demo ran past him, quickly shooting down the pyro and unleashing hell on anyone who got near the cart. Pyro took a moment to put out his burning teammate with a quick compression blast from his flamethrower and then ran off to join the fight.

Scout sighed in relief and hollered a "Thanks" to the pyromaniac. Most of his hair had been singed off and his skin was painfully blistering. He made his way to the health pack that he had been sprinting towards which was located in the nook of the hallway that was right next to the end of the choke point. Picking it up had brought some relief to his burns, but it being one of the smaller ones he was still in no condition to join the fight. There was a larger one upstairs that would certainly make him feeling like new and Scout set out towards the stairway in search of this wonderful resource.

The second level had a few openings that overlooked the battlements which made them very good sentry placements. Scout suspected that the Engineer would be making a rush to get up there once he recovered in respawn before the BLU engineer did.

The health pack was in the room farthest from the stairs. As Scout walked towards the entrance he heard a small rustling sound and careful footsteps coming from it, making him feel slightly unnerved. His thoughts quickly raced through the possibilities of what it could be. Perhaps one of his teammates had come up here to catch their breath from the fight, or maybe some scared little animal had gotten stuck up here though he knew it was more than likely to be an enemy spy. He tried to keep his breathing slow and calm and took carefully measured steps as he neared the entrance way so that whatever was in the room, especially a spy, wouldn't be alerted to his presence.

Though he as approached the entrance of the room he was stunned by a rather confusing sight.

There was a figure standing in the room. It was faced away from him and seemed to be timidly peeking out of the opening that overlooked the rest of the battlements. It was draped in a red jacket and wore green headwear which had registered in Scout's mind as Soldier, one of his fellow teammates. Scout immediately felt a wave of relief but that was quickly replaced with apprehension as his demeanor was quite suspicious and was most likely a disguised spy. Scout was about to rush him and take him by surprise but then other things about this character began to register.

As he looked closer, the jacket had no class symbol and the head wear that Scout first assumed was Soldier's helmet, looked to be a filthy green cap. The jacket also seemed to obscure his body, but it seemed to fit loosely on him, and from what he could tell compared to the Soldier he looked so... Small.

He'd never seen this person before in his life.

Scout straightened up, not quite sure what to do. Typically the team usually just killed strangers that showed up on base but mostly all the time they were messengers from the Administrator, and she's not real happy about that. Scout had nothing against the Administrator, but he doubted that it had less to do with her value on human life and more of that most of the time they had small televisions surgically placed in their torsos, and that wasn't exactly cheap. Except this person didn't act like a messenger. It wasn't like one to waltz right up on the battlements, especially when there was a battle going on! People couldn't be that stupid though then again most smart people probably wouldn't agree to have a mini-TV surgically placed inside them.

Scout very quietly took one step into the room. The stranger didn't take notice. He seemed to be wearing shoes that had been worn down to the soles and the laces were almost completely deteriorated. Scout saw a sleeping bag that was unbundled and partially unzipped that had been hastily pushed into the corner, along with a backpack with a couple of canteens attached to it.

A hobo, huh? Scout thought to himself. It wasn't necessarily unheard of wanderers stumbling upon Team Fortress Industries but it was an exceedingly rare occurrence considering that most of their bases were located in the middle of the Badlands, a not so person friendly environment.

He had an idea of what he had to do now. Trespassers were not welcomed. He took a deep breath, almost like he was preparing himself for what he was about to do. He readied his gun and took a couple steps towards the intruder. His back straightened, clearly alerted to Scout's presence, but before he could turn around Scout instinctively pinned him to the wall, drawing out a surprised gasp from the hobo.

"Please, don't hurt me! I- I didn't know!" His voice was a lot higher than Scout expected it to be which forced him to take a moment to take a few breaths because he really didn't want to laugh.

"Sorry, pal," he said trying to hide any amusement that may try and work its way into his voice, "but we take trespassin' very seriously." He took a moment to readjust his arms, which meant not holding down the intruder with as much force, to get the gun in the proper position to take him out. It was at this moment the hobo saw his opportunity and somehow managed the strength to press off of the wall. Before Scout could pin him back down again he spun around and expertly placed his hands on Scout's wrists and before he knew it Scout's face was smooshed up against the wall. "What the -?!"

"Oh shit..." the trespasser could barely whisper once he noticed the gun in Scout's hand. "Okay, okay..." he took deep breaths," Just hear me out! I've been kind of lost for a while and I was getting low on supplies. Last night I saw lights coming from here and I thought someone here could he-" As he talked Scout could feel him going for the gun, making the same mistake as he had before by not applying as much force as he moved his arms. Scout mirrored what the hobo did before and with ease pushed off the wall and had almost sent them both tumbling over each other with how much force he used. He grabbed the intruder's wrist and the stranger caught his hand that was holding the gun.

The trespasser's hands were trembling and he was panting heavily. For a moment, Scout was consumed by his large, brown eyes as he looked into his in search of some mercy. "I'm sorry, but please... I didn't mean to-"

Scout cut him off by driving his foot into his stomach. They both let go of each other as he doubled over in pain, and Scout kicked him again sending him stumbling back until he fell to the ground and hit his head on something. Scout smiled to himself. "I'm really sorry, pally, but there's just certain things we gotta do." He pointed the scatter gun right at the trespasser but as he looked up his smile had quickly disappeared.

When the intruder hit his head, messy, light brown hair had slipped out from beneath his filthy hat and fell down to his shoulders. Scout felt some color come into his cheeks as he could see that the intruder's chest slightly curved out through his loose-fitting jacket and it struck Scout like a fist why his voice was so high. This wasn't a guy...

He stepped closer towards her, with the gun still aimed at her. She didn't even move from where she landed, she was just frozen there. Her whole upper body moved as she breathed. Scout watched her eyes shift between him and the two barrels of the gun, trying to register what was happening, what was about to happen. Her eyes finally locked on his with a frantic flame of life dancing behind them, and he found himself unable to break away from that gaze.

He slowly inched forward, not realizing that his whole body was shaking, and he stopped when he was towering over her and the double barrel was pointed right between her eyes. She held her gaze with him for just another moment until she broke away to look down the barrels. He watched as the flames die way, and with a heavy sigh she looked down to the floor and closed her eyes. Her shoulders sloped downward, almost like every muscle in her body was suddenly relaxed.

Scout breathed in slowly, feeling as cold air fill up his lungs until it got to be so painful he swore they were going to burst. He could hear the words screaming in his mind, "Just pull the trigger! Just pull the damn trigger!" but his hands couldn't do it. The fingertips twitched as his hands resisted the orders of his brain. He felt his fingers getting stiff and the gun was getting heavier in his hands. Did she really just give up?

"Gawd, you're pathetic," he muttered very quietly under his breath as he lowered the gun away from her. She looked back up at him forcing Scout to quickly avert his gaze and roughly bit down on his lower lip. What the heck am I doing? He began to uncomfortably scratch the back of his head. "I- um..." From the corner of his eye, he saw her get up on her feet and she began to make a run for the exit. "Wait! No, no, no, doan go out there!" He holstered the gun and immediately ran up behind her, seizing one of her arms with both his hands before she could run outside the room and presumably get her head blown off. "Listen to me!"

She didn't pull back like he expected her to. He felt her arm tense up as grabbed her, and her body instantly took to an intimidating battle stance. "You tried to shoot me!" She practically yelled exasperated.

Scout frantically held a finger up while shushing her before replacing it on her arm. "I- I did," He said breathlessly, "but the impohtant thing is that I didn't, and I doan think I can say as much for the guys out there." The panicked flame was dancing in her eyes again. "So if you wanna get outta here alive, you gotta listen to me."

The floor beneath them rumbled, followed by the dying screams of the heavy. "OUR CONTROL POINT HAS BEEN CAPTURED!"

The two of them exchanged nervous looks. "And it's about to get very hectic up here."

Her arm became more relaxed in his hands, and her stance had become much less fierce throughout this exchange. With a shaking voice, she uttered, "Okay... What do we do?"

Scout's eyes quickly scanned the room until his eyes fell on a large crate where the top was not fully closed. "Here!" Scout dashed over to the crate and dug his fingers in between the cracks until the lid finally gave. How fortunate it had been emptied a long time ago. "Get in, and try to stay here until I get back," he ordered as scrambled about to grab the things she'd left in the corner and tossing them in the crate. She stumbled toward it timidly and placed her hands on its ledge. It was a fairly large crate; its height went up barely past her waist. Scout begun muttering for her to hurry up as the sounds of war drew closer. She managed to hoist her waist over its ledge and quickly swung her legs over.

"Thank you," she said as she dropped down, "This is- this is very kind."

A slight grin began to work its way onto Scout's face as her gratitude caught him off guard. "Ah well, you know... I'm-" Another explosion rumbled the building and made him remember that this was not the time to be pumping his ego, "Nevah mind." He grabbed the top and begun trying to put it back.

"My name's Lyra by the way," she quickly spoke up, but Scout's mind was too busy panicking about what was going on right outside and how the lid wasn't going on correctly to fully register what she said.

"Uh, Scout," he quickly replied. The lid slipped from its position which led him to have to restart putting it back on.

"Scout..." she said rather thoughtfully to herself. Scout gasped excitedly as the lid finally fit into the ridges. She spoke up a bit, "That's a nice nam-" Scout had slammed the lid on her, sighing in relief that that was over for now.

That's not even my real name, he thought to himself. He grabbed the health pack that he had come up there for, and ran out the door. On the way down the stairs, he passed Engineer, who was carrying a red metallic box.

Scout felt his stomach turn inside of him. A whole world of possibilities and consequences was pouring through his mind. There were small bits of his mind that entertained the ideas that he could gain something from helping her, but those thoughts not only conflicted with his feelings for a certain green-eyed woman. They also did not compare to consequences he may have to face up to. How would his teammates react if they found her? What would happen to his job if the Administrator found out?

He felt his fingers twitch as he took out his scatter gun. He felt an urge to run back up there and just shoot her before this became too much of a problem. But he didn't. He just kept running. Running away from something that he felt certain was going to blow up in his face.

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**Author's Note: I didn't mean for this chapter to go for so long, but I really hope you guys enjoyed this. I have a clear idea of where I want this story to go, but it's going to take some time for this story to gain enough momentum to get there smoothly. So please! Review! Constructive criticism, advice, and suggestions would really help me grow as a writer and really push this story in the right direction! Thank you so much for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Forewarning- This chapter contains some graphic violence and a couple of F-bombs. This chapter was also originally posted as two chapters so it's a bit lengthy. **

**I don't own Team Fortress. Clearly. **

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Scout's day ended with a titanium bat becoming very familiar with the back of his head. Quite intimately apparently since it didn't seem to have the heart to kill him even after caving in his skull, instead it left him writhing in pain on the floor. He could've sworn he was bleeding but when he touched the back of his head he only felt the impression the bat left in his skull.

"Heh heh, sorry about that, man," his rival chuckled with a hint of discomfort in his voice, "Hold still, I'll get it this time."

"How'd you fuck it up the first time, ya fuck!" Scout practically cried, but he moved his hands so that his rival would mercifully finish him off. His rival was beginning to laugh hysterically before Scout felt the back of his skull collapse onto his brain.

He found himself surrounded by the white walls of the living corridors infirmary completely out of breath and his heart pounding against his chest. He was greeted by the engineer who was wiping his brow and sighing in relief that the day was finally over.

"Rough day, huh?" He smiled at Scout once he took notice of his demeanor.

"You doan know the half of it," he said with a breathless laugh. He'd been too distracted by the fact that there was a hobo chick waiting for him in a crate that he'd gotten his ass kicked more than usual.

He followed the engineer out of the room and both their stomachs growled in hunger. Engie chuckled, "I think it's Pyro and I's night to cook. We should have something whipped up in about thirty minutes. An hour at most."

"Alright," Scout replied distractedly, even though the mention of food, especially when made by Engie and Pyro since they were typically the only ones who actually tried to make something good, made him glad. Scout's eyes followed the stocky man to the kitchen door until he disappeared behind it.

He sighed and went to go wander around outside. It was too late to try and get Laura or Lori or whatever her name was off the property but he knew he couldn't leave a girl in a wooden crate all night. They were also fighting tomorrow so she couldn't stay on the battlements either. He needed to think of a safer place she could hide for the night.

He wandered around the outside the living corridors trying to think of such a place, though made sure to stay close by since he didn't really want to miss out on dinner. He kicked stones around as he tried to make sense of the situation.

Why didn't he shoot her? He pondered this because he knew he was so bent on shooting her but then it turned out she had... _Boobs_. One of his greatest weaknesses. Girls generally were. Pretty or ugly, he never liked the idea of hurting one, let alone killing one. And it seems he wasn't capable of it either.

With another sigh, he kicked another rock down the side of the hill, and then he noticed a deer path that was barely visible due to fading from lack of use. His eyes traced the path which seemed to go a long distance until completely disappeared behind some large rock formations. Then it stuck him in his mind, he remembered one place that he'd discovered while exploring the property during a cease fire. It was a shed that may have been used for maintenance but it seemed to be rarely used probably on account of it being so far away. It'd definitely be a step up from a wooden crate and it was a good distance away from the battlements and the living corridors. It'd be perfect for a night.

Hopefully for just one night.

Before he could do or think anything else he heard Engie ring the dinner bell. Scout immediately ran toward the living corridors, feeling a little anxious to be amongst his comrades while having such a dangerous secret.

The mess hall was filled with the heavenly smell of food. Scout's stomach growled at the promise of food and he made a beeline for the dinner line which only consisted of Soldier of Demoman. They must've been getting a head start on getting drunk in the mess hall while everyone was somewhere else doing their own thing, well, at least, Soldier was getting started on getting drunk, Demo always was. Demo gave him the usual drunken greeting and Soldier begun raving about the day's defeat.

"What happened today was completely unacceptable!" Soldier started yelling.

"Yeah, yeah," Scout says quickly, he didn't feel up to dealing with Soldier's usual ridicule, 'We'll do better tomorrow."

"You better hope so, maggot, because another defeat like that is going to earn this entire team a retraining session!"

Scout grunted in response. Soldier always made sure everyone was on top of their game, which wasn't a bad thing, but it did get a bit excessive with the usual workouts. A retraining session on top of that would definitely suck.

He merely rolled his eyes at the crazed patriot and grabbed a plate and silverware that Pyro had just put out. Other teammates were beginning to slowly stream into the mess hall as Engie was beginning to place food out.

"Are you in a hurry, Scout?" Engie said with a curious look, and Scout noticed that he'd been moving his legs like he'd been trying to run in place.

"Uh-eh, just can't wait to eat!" Scout laughed. He's heart was racing in his chest. Engie pulled the cover of off the food to reveal a mixture of noodles and meat all coated in delicious looking cheese.

"Well dig right in then!"

After Demo and Solider got their fill, Scout quickly piled up a mountain of cheesy goodness onto his plate and then went to go sit on the other side of the mess hall. Most of his teammates raised an eyebrow at him as they got their meals since it was an odd occurrence for Scout to not trying to be the center of attention. Scout really didn't want to socialize, he just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. He scarfed down a spoonful of the stuff, the deliciousness skid over his taste buds and then quickly burned down his throat.

Scout felt an overwhelming sense of dread when the tall, slender man entered the mess hall. He shot a glance at the boy as he headed over to get his food. Scout swallowed another bite nervously. He knew he was screwed. There was really no way of keeping secrets from Spy. It was part of his job to get information out of people and he knew when people were hiding things.

And Scout wasn't exactly being the most inconspicuous person either.

He continued to scarf down food and from the upper corner of his eye, he watched Spy grab a plate and leisurely load it with food while taking a couple more curious glances at him. Once Spy had gotten what he needed he turned away from the kitchen and stood there for a moment, looking at Scout and contemplating. Scout felt his entire body tense up as he felt Spy's eyes peering into him. He tried his best to relax and to act naturally in hopes that the lanky man would pass over him. And just to be safe he filled his head with happy, dumb thoughts because Scout was sure Spy could read minds, and he hoped not to give him anything that he'd find interesting.

_Hot chicks, hot chicks, hot chicks, hot chicks, hot chicks... _Except Spy still stood there, seemingly unswayed by the thoughts that Scout was trying to broadcast. _Miss Pauling in a bikini..._

Spy had suddenly lost interest in the boy's behavior and finally started moving toward the mess hall doors. He sometimes preferred to eat alone in his room, especially after a defeat.

_It worked!_

Scout breathed a happy sigh of relief. He helped himself to a couple more bites of his dinner before he looked down at his plate and realized that he had already forked down more than half of the food.

Spy was not fully out the mess hall doors when Scout allowed his thoughts to return back to his predicament.

_I bet the poor kid's starvin'_, he thought as it occurred to him that he had left some chick in a crate for maybe eight hours. Well, assuming that she hadn't lost patience and took her risks and left. He actually somewhat hoped that was the case.

"How are you doing, Scout?" Hearing the Frenchman's voice made Scout jump in his seat, and almost threw his fork across the room. Spy had apparently refound interest in Scout's behavior.

_Aw, crap..._

Scout swallowed hard and then tried to clear his throat. "Ah-Good, good- I'm good." Scout forced a smile to his curious teammate.

Spy smiled back. He twirled his pack around on his plate for a moment. "Well zat's _good_ to 'ear," he said in a forcibly cheerful tone, "but what are you doing over 'ere all alone?" Spy took a small bit of food while giving Scout a questioning look.

"Oh well, you know," Spy's expression became rather irritated because clearly he did not know. Scout had to refrain from punching himself in the face because even he knew how idiotic and suspicious that response was. "I just needa a little a- uh- time to myself... Yeah."

That response was not any better.

"Really?" Spy replied in mocking surprise.

"Huh, yeah... Yeah." The Frenchman was not convinced. He placed his plate on the space in front of Scout and pulled out a chair.

_Oh shit..._ Just as Spy was sitting down, Scout quickly shot up from his seat. He was not going to be able to take Spy interrogating him, especially with the rest of the team nearby to witness.

"Well, I'm full- And I'd love tah stick around and chit-chat with ya Spy, but I uh- I needa call my ma, it's been a while and she gets really worried about those sorta things, ya know?" That was actually true. He hadn't called his mother in a while and he really did need to try to make time to do that later.

"Uh-oh, okay?"

Scout quickly picked up his plate and begun shuffling toward the door. He felt a rush of guilt and embarrassment wash over him as he felt every eye follow him out of the room.

* * *

After promptly making sure no one had followed him upstairs and that the door to his bedroom was surely locked, Scout quickly searched through his garbage to an old Chinese take-out box and shoveled whatever left over from dinner into it.

He shoved the box into his bag along with the fork he had hastily cleaned by wiping it off with his shirt. He flipped on the lights to make the room seem like it was occupied and then turned on the radio making sure it was loud enough to be heard from outside but quiet enough to not have any of his teammates banging on his door.

Scout threw open the window and then slipped outside.

Scout jogged the half mile to the battlements and just to save time, he jumped down the steep sides that created the battlements dirt walls. He landed with a stinging pain shooting up from his feet to his knees, but he quickly walked it out because it wasn't anything he wasn't used to from jumping from much larger heights.

He made his way down the familiar corridor and slowed his pace as he walked up the stairs. He slowed even more as he walked toward the room with the crate. He still somewhat hoped that she wasn't there, that she had left because this was not a situation he wanted to be dealing with, but at the same time, he kind of looked forward to having someone new to talk to. His team was great and all but they already knew how great was, he needed to share his wonderful personality with someone else so they could know how great he was too.

Scout walked very hesitantly into the room. It was silent except for a couple of birds chirping somewhere in the distance. He took a deep breath and he pried open the crate. As he lifted the lid, he felt both disappointment and relief to see the kid sitting up frozen in the corner of the box. He noticed that her body relaxed slightly as she realized in was him.

"Hi there," Scout tried to say nonchalantly to put a little ease the tension.

"Hi," she replied while forcing an uncomfortable smile. She coughed once before she grabbed a handful or her unraveled sleeping bag and tossed it over the side of the crate and then did the same to her backpack. In another moment, she swung her legs over the side and hopped to the ground.

"Uh sorry, for uh, takin' so long," Scout said while rubbing the back of his neck while she stretched her legs and rubbed her eyes.

"It's all right," she coughed again while she began wrapping up her sleeping bag, but this one sounding particularly nasty and wet, "though I was starting to think that you weren't coming back." She secured the sleeping bag into a tight little bundle and hooked it up to her backpack. "I was considering taking my chances since it got quiet for a while."

"Oh really," maybe he shouldn't have come back. _Oh well..._

With a grunt, she hoisted the baggage onto her shoulders and then looked at Scout almost expectingly. "So um, now what?"

Scout blinked at her as if he was somewhat dazed for a moment.

"Oh I-um- I know a place you could-uh- stay for the night," he started as he begun to snap out of it. "If you're interhested, I mean."

The kid coughed as she thought it over. "Hmm well..." she seemed to be preparing to decline his offer until she noticed how low the sun was. "Oh, I guess I should stay the night... Thank you."

"Alright," Scout nodded and then started for the door, "Follow me toots."

* * *

"So where ya from?" Scout asked in attempts to start a conversation. He hated awkward silences and they had fallen into one shortly after he called her toots followed by an intelligible grumble from under her breath.

The girl gave a little chuckle, "Well, I don't suppose you've heard of a little town called Mesquite?"

Scout felt the corners of his mouth perk upward into a bewildered smile. He honestly had no idea what she just said. "Uh, nah, I can't say I have." They reached the foot of the dirt wall and Scout decided that it'd just be better to just climb up it rather than trying to navigate through one of the mines they rarely used. He laced his fingers and crouched with his back facing the wall, "Here, I'll give ya a boost."

She looked at him a little questioningly for a moment and then her eyes flickered to the top of the dirt walls. "Oh, okay." She back took a couple steps back then walked quickly toward him to gain some momentum, and once her foot made contact with hands Scout swiftly hoisted her upward until she could swing her legs over the top. She was a little lighter than he had expected. It then stood out to him that her clothes probably made her look a lot fuller than she actually was.

"Thanks," She said while dusting herself off. She smiled and reached her hand out to him. Scout glanced at it a bit hesitantly, somewhere in the back of his mind considered whether or not she'd be strong enough to actually pull him up, but he grabbed her hand anyway.

"I'm not surprised you've never heard of Mesquite," she started as she struggled to pull him up, "It's not exactly a town, well not yet at least.* It's also in Nevada."

Scout climbed over the top of the dirt wall and he gave her a quick thanks. She had a bit of a coughing fit but she managed to choke out a "you're welcome."

"So Nevada, huh?" Scout said somewhat surprised while also pronouncing the Holy Land's name as "Nev-AW-da," unknowingly committing one of the biggest sins that one can commit in the presences of a Nevadan. Though he was fortunate that this one was of a forgiving nature and merely smiled while she worked through her coughing fit though she was determined to correct him and save his misguided soul.

"It's pronounced Ne-AH-da, actually," she said kindly though Scout didn't quite catch on.

"Yeah, that's whatta said, Ne-AW-da!" He replied in a slight laugh. The girl bit down on her lip, still smiling, but shaking her head slightly as she came to the conclusion that it may be pointless to try and redeem him. Her point of origin did strike Scout as a little curious though and begun to press a little further. "So, uh, you know you're in New Mexico, right?" He chuckled to himself, thinking he made a funny.

"Heh, yeah, I just kind of ended up here. I'm a bit of a wanderer, you know, just kind of go where ever life takes me," she said almost whimsically that Scout couldn't help but cringe at just how cheesy that statement sounded.

"You're notta hippie, are ya?" Scout asked somewhat scornfully. He'd only met a handful of hippies in his time, but the never did strike a positive chord with considering he wasn't much of a 'lover of peace' nor did they take too kindly to the dog tags that he wore around his neck. Man, he'd really hate himself if he was putting his ass on the line for some brain dead hippie.

She laughed heartily at his question, "Oh God, no! Hippies usually travel in packs anyway. I'm here by and for myself."

"Heh, what's yo name again?"

An embarrassed smile spread across the girl's face and gaining some color in her cheeks as if she'd been caught in a lie. She spoke timidly, "Lyra."

"Sounds like a hippy name to me," Scout snidely remarked with a smirk. The girl's embarrassed smile grew a little wider but she said nothing in response. "Ah, com'on! I'm only joking here, toots! Besides, I don't really care." Scout did decide that maybe he really didn't as long as she didn't try to force that hippy crap on him-

"So where are _you_ from?" She asked suddenly as if to bring them away from the subject, "Boston?"

"Why yes!" he laughed, "Did my awesomely amazing accent give it away? Ladies _love_ the accent, I'm sure ya know. I'm not allowed tah go in town anymore. Ya see, I got all the looks that make all the gihls feel all light-headed and everything. The minute I staht talkin' though- BAM! All the ladies are knocked into a coma. Foh a week. It's quite sad actually. I'm suhprised you're still walkin' after havin' been talkin' with me for this long!"

Lyra laughed hard enough to trigger another coughing fit. "Ha, I know! I feel as if I'm gonna faint at any moment!" She coughed a little harder and her nose wrinkled up a bit as she tried to hide a wince behind a smile, "Though that may just be the exhaustion.

"Heh heh, very funny, but I know you dig it..." he chuckled, finding himself a little surprised but glad to find that this hobo hippy kid had a sense of humor. The comment about exhaustion did provoke a couple of questions he wanted to ask. "So... uh, how long have ya been out here anyway?"

"Hmm," she took a moment to muse over the answer, "I believe I've been out here for out here in the badlands for about... A little less than a month probably. I did intend to stay until the beginning of spring but- uh-" she awkwardly readjusted her gear on her shoulders, "I kind of was rushed into this... I didn't take into account a few things, didn't prepare as well as I should've, and well a lot of things just went bad."

"Oh," Scout said, "Does any family or whatevah know you're out here?"

"Nope."

Her response was so nonchalant and unhesitating that it struck Scout by surprise. He shot her a quizzical look and she merely shrugged her shoulders and begun to explain: "My pop and I were never exactly on the best terms. We did a lot of fighting back home. Heck, it was a fight that's the reason I _had_ to leave home."

"He kicked you out, huh?"

She remained in a thoughtful silence for a short while until she nodded her head, smiling, "Yeah, I guess you can say that."

"Man, that sucks."

"Not really. I was more than happy to leave home," she said, "There wasn't really anything left for me there, you know? I was probably going to end up leaving the place anyway."

She said it all in the most sincerest way possible, but Scout couldn't help but pick up on some regret that seemed to hide behind her words. He merely shrugged at it, though. "If you say so."

She kicked at a rock as walked down the dirt path. The sun was almost gone and it was getting a bit too frigid for her liking. "Where are we headed anyway? Are we close?"

Scout looked around until he caught sight of the lights of the REDs living corridors far off on the horizon and the rock formation was steadily approaching. "It ain't too far."

The time then and to when they reached the shed, scout decided he got enough information about the hobo to satisfy his curiosity and begun to talk about whatever that came to mind. "Jeebus, it's getting' really freakin' cold!"

"Heh heh, yeah," the girl sighed, "I actually came here to get away from the cold."

Scout laughed. He'd spent a fair amount of winters in the badlands so he was well aware that it could easily dip past the freezing point. What made it funnier to him was that winter hadn't fully rolled around quite yet, so it was only going to get _much_ worse. "And how'd that work out for ya?"

"Terribly," she laughed, "A place that's supposedly a billion degrees in the summer should be somewhat tolerable in the winter, right?"

"Well, they don't call it the 'Badlands' for nothin', kid!" Scout chuckled, "Though it's not as bad as Boston in winter..." He then went on a long tangent about the roughness of Boston and how cold it could get. He went on about the thick layers that'd cover the streets and made it practically impossible to go anywhere, and how by spring stray cats and dogs, rodents, and even hobos would still be found frozen to death and sticking to the pavement. Lyra didn't really say much in response to his rambling, she merely nodded her head occasionally said things such as "oh wow" to show she was still listening as she was observing the landscape around her.

They carried on like this for about five minutes as they wounded down faded deer paths and around large rocks. Eventually a worn shack cam into view.

"Is that it?" Lyra asked, having a hint of hopefulness in her voice.

"Uh, yeah," Scout took greater strides to pull ahead as the walked toward the shed. The shed was kind of nice considerably nice despite it being rather worn down through some tough years in the badlands. It was a good size, it could easily fit a couple of people, and there were some small windows that partially lined the top of it. Scout felt rather proud of himself for thinking of such a good hiding spot.

_If only it wasn't locked._

Scout's heart fell to see a shiny lock placed securely on the door. He fiddled around with it at first as if hoping that it'd break off or it'd unlock but it was a pointless effort.

"Aw screw it," Scout reached into his bag and pulled out his pistol. He didn't take notice that the girl's body seized up upon seeing the gun and had taken a couple of steps back. He tugged on the lock a couple more times, and then he fiddled around with it until he found a good position to shoot it without loosing a finger.

He had some hesitation though before shooting it. Somewhere in his mind he considered the shininess of the lock and questioned how recently it'd been placed here. He thought about the maintenance men and wondered if they might wind up stumbling across a hobo sleeping in their shed, but he reasoned with himself that they rarely come up here at least with the teams fighting since they might end up getting accidently killed. He also imagined Miss Pauling chopping up bodies in this shed. There were a few twists in his stomach at that thought.

_BANG!_

He shot the lock anyway. The kid made a startled yelp. Scout opened the door and felt a wave of relief wash over him as he saw that the shed looked relatively normal on the inside. When Scout looked back at Lyra, he saw that she'd seemed to have drained of some color and recoiled into a defensive position. She seemed to be frozen in place. She nervously glanced at the pistol in his hand, which he quickly hid behind his back upon realizing that's what spooked her, and held out his arm toward the doorway while offering up an awkward smile as if saying either "Tadaa!" or "After you."

She remained still for a moment, but gradually her body relaxed with her shoulders slowly drooping down and her expression showing a little more composer. She eventually took a step toward the door.

"Thank you," she managed to say, sounding just as timid but sincerely grateful as she did that morning.

He nodded to her as she entered, but Scout did not reply with a "you're welcome." He also almost lost himself for a moment. He felt something tugging- a tugging on his chest. He felt as if something was drawing himself back to the living corridors. He wasn't sure why either. There was just something there. Pushing him to run back, just to check on things. But he couldn't do it. Instead, he stepped inside the shed and closed the door while shaking his head. Convincing himself that it was nothing.

* * *

**Footnote- *According to the internet, Mesquite NV was incorporated as a city in the mid-80's, so around when Team Fortress 2 was set the population was considerably small. If I'm wrong, I apologize to anyone who lives in Mesquite NV. (Disclaimer: I never lived in Nevada)**

**Author's note: Yay! You made it to the end! Thanks for toughening it out, I originally posted this as two separate chapters but I wanted to keep the "Introduction" part of the story in as few chapters as possible so I thought since both chapters still kind of stuck in one scene I'd just combine them. I hope it was interesting enough to read through but if a majority of people think it's too long I'll cut it back to how it was originally.**

**Reviews are much appreciated! **

**Thank you guys so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed it.**


	3. Chapter 3

The shed was dark for obvious reasons, such as the sun having almost disappeared behind the horizons and the small windows that lined the top of the shed were not efficient in providing light. Lyra took a moment to rummage through her backpack and pulled out a small flashlight that illuminated the room in a soft white light revealing as a variety of tools hanging on the walls ranging from hoes to fire axes.

Scout felt a twinge of horror and dread upon seeing these since over the years he's watched Pyromaniacs from both teams bludgeon people to death with such tools. The Nevadan across from him remained unphased, clearly having the fortune of never been given a reason to fear common gardening supplies.

The light flickered as Lyra made a quick look around the room and sighed, "The battery is gonna be dead soon." She turned her attention to an old lantern that judging by the little cobwebs it hadn't been used in a while. She reached out to grab it but then hesitantly pulled back and looked to Scout. "Is it alright if I use this?"

Scout was still caught up in whatever strange feeling that had gotten a hold of him when she asked. It took a moment to connect the question to the lantern but when once he did he merely shrugged.

"I doubt anyone would mind."

Lyra nodded and began to rummage through her pockets until she pulled out a small lighter. It took a bit of fiddling, but in a sudden _click_, the room was flooded with a harsh yellow light. The Nevadan gave a satisfied hum and placed the lantern down by her feet as well as putting most of her things aside with the exception of her sleeping bag, which she had begun to unroll the far side of the shed. As she finished she shot a glance at the boy who was standing rather awkwardly near the door.

"Do you need to get back to, uh, well you know, wherever…" She completely trailed off at the end as she clearly had no clue where he came from or where they were.

"Uh…" Scout still had a sinking suspicion that his flamboyant personality would be missed amongst his teammates, but he didn't quite want to return to the base yet. "I'm soire it's fine."

Lyra nodded again, and then two were plunged into silence with Scout remained near the door and she was sitting uneasily on her sleeping bag. It was horribly uncomfortable. It was odd to say about a stranger, but Scout could almost feel the distance between them, or perhaps not between them personally, but in general, her demeanor just struck him as distant.

The silence was soon broken by Lyra's stomach growling.

She laughed and made some remark that Scout didn't quite catch because at that moment he had remembered the leftovers he had shoved into his bag earlier and was quickly trying to fish it out to give to her.

"Here's some food," he said as he handed it to here, "I figahed you be hungry and all being cramped in that crate all day, I just thought-"

"Thank you," she interrupted though perhaps not intentionally, as she gave him a concerned look as if she realized he was still talking, "Sorry, this is just very kind of you. I'm stunned really."

Her words made Scout's ego soar and he didn't miss a beat to humblebrag about what a swell person he was. He didn't get much of a response, though, aside from occasional grunts to show she was still listening through mouthfuls. The cheesy pasta that the Engineer made for dinner was probably stale and lukewarm by now but the girl seemed to be more than content with it.

Watching her eat, Scout begun to recall when he was little, growing up in Boston, there were usually stray cats and dogs that lived in the alley next to his apartment complex. He remembered how him, and his two of his older brothers used to sneak out and feed them despite their mother's warning about feeding strays, how they'd come and all, though that was exactly what they wanted, for those cute, sad little animals to come back and stay forever.

"Oh boy," Lyra burped as she was coming to the last of the pasta and breaking Scout's train of thought. "You won't believe how long it's been since I've had actual food."

Though that wasn't true. Given her disheveled appearance, it was easy for Scout to assume that it had been quite awhile.

"So if you're gonna stick around, do you wanna play some cards?" She asked while reaching into her pockets and pulling out a deck of cards.

"Um soire," Scout obliged with a hint of surprise in his voice, "You carry a deck of cahds in your pocket?"

She laughed. "I keep a lot of weird shit in my pockets."

Lyra poured the cards into her hand and she played around with the deck as she inquired further, "What do you wanna play?"

"Hmm, I don't know," Scout wasn't exactly big on card games and he was only familiar with some forms of poker and Go Fish.

She began to shuffle the deck in an impressive manner, breaker the into two halves and merged them together in a way that resembled a collapsing bridge until it all fell back into one deck.

"You know how to play Texas Holdem?" She said almost too smugly with a matching smile. Her smile has struck him as familiar for some reason, and for another reason it made him feel almost instinctively irritated.

He also couldn't help but roll his eyes and utter a rude "of course" as if he wasn't surprised a Nevadian's first choice for a game involved gambling.

"I don't exactly have money I can just gamble away here."

"Heh, I don't either," Lyra laughed, "We can use the imaginary money."

It struck him as a funny concept but before Scout would give his own input she smacked the ground in front of where he sat and then hers. "Let's say we both have a hundred dollars..."

it took a little bickering and Lyra's trying to explain how they'd play the same way with imaginary money as they would real money, Scout agreed but was still not quite sure how this would all work out.

He lost most of his imaginary money pretty quickly within the first couple of rounds though this didn't really keep him from making foolish bets as they kept on playing.

They fell into what seemed to be their dynamic, he chattered her ear off and she mostly showed she was listening through either nodding, laughing and other audible cues and occasionally she had the coughing fit. Scout mostly talked about himself, such as how great he was or exaggerated tales about him growing up in Boston.

The one she seemed to enjoy the most was the one where he said he took on twenty guys in a bar fight to win a girl's heart.

"Where these twenty men starving midgets?" She slyly remarked in jest.

His ego was hurt, but before he could get defensive he saw a chance to spit back with another off colored remark, "I guess you'd know a thing or two about starvin' midgets being one yourself."

The Nevadian burst into a fit of laughter, practically rolling onto her back, kicking up the cards that were laying out on the ground as she hugged her sides. Scout felt himself well up with pride as she begun to wheeze for air but later he'd realize that it was because her lungs were going to shit and not because of how hard she was laughing. Though he'd like to think it was a major contributor.

"Fair enough," she struggled to say through a fit of laughter and coughs, "but I ain't that short."

Their game became rather disjointed after that. Scout was either doing things he wasn't supposed to or missing cues, none of which Lyra didn't notice for she was trying to stop giggling or perhaps she didn't care. She did eventually manage to calm down a bit and stop giggling. Her mood gradually changed throughout the "game", as it really just throwing down at the center and saying almost seemingly random numbers in place of bets, and her gaze gently set somewhere just below Scout's neck. Eventually, Scout got to a lull in his speech, at which point Lyra spoke suddenly.

"Were you, uh, drafted?" she said while making a vague gesture with her hand. It took Scout a moment to realize that she was referring to the dog tags around his neck and he almost immediately felt as if his stomach was turning up in knots.

"Ah, no," he replied. He knocked on the floor to indicate he passed though not realizing it was Lyra's turn. "I volunteered. I did all my service before all that."

"How many years did you serve?"

"Ah just about one." Scout's voice was starting to show signs of discomfort. Nothing in Vietnam had particularly left him scarred, or, at least, nothing he'd really admit to anyway, but he didn't really like being asked about it. Lyra seemed to pick up on this though as she opened her mouth to say something but then abruptly shut it. She sat there quietly for a moment before she decided to ask anyway.

"Did you ever know a guy named Daniel?" Scout was about to reply with a sarcastic remark about how common a name that was but seeming to realize her mistake and added quickly though a bit begrudgingly, "Hughes? Did you ever know a guy named Daniel Hughes?"

The name didn't even sound vaguely familiar to him, nor was he all that good with names in the first place.

"Nah, never heard of 'em," he replied, he kind of wanted to drop it all but he pried further anyway, "Why do ya ask anyway?"

"My brother up and left one night and I haven't seen nor heard of him since. It's been roughly three years, I figured, you know, he got sent off but I don't really have a clue what happened to him."

Her shoulders started to droop sadly as she spoke, seeming to pour her attention over her cards. She started fidgeting with the hem of her jacket sleeves.

"Ar- Are you lookin' for him out here or somethin'?"

She shook her head hesitantly.

"No," she replied almost firmly, "He-He's gone, I'm sure of it, but whenever I meet a serviceman I- it doesn't hurt to ask, you know?"

Scout didn't get to express how he knew as she slapped her hand down exposing a royal flush, seeming to declare the end of a game that they had earlier lost track of.

She sighed, sounding borderline depressed, "Tough luck, huh. I guess you've reached the end of your imaginary money. I guess we should stop, I don't wanna try to calculate your imaginary debt- Ha!" She was coughing by the end of her tirade.

"You alright?" Scout asked. The change in mood was rather disconcerting to him.

"Yeah, yeah," she wheezed. She began to burrow into her sleeping bag. "I'm just, you know, tired from- Everything."

She popped her head out from her fabric cocoon, staring at him with exhausted eyes and a melancholy smile.

"It's getting real late, and I don't want to get you into trouble."

"It's okay, I'm always in trouble," Scout said in attempts to be reassuring.

"Well I don't want to get you into any more trouble," she chuckled, "I don't want you to worry or anything. I'll try to clear out and be out of your hair by morning, okay?"

Lyra continued to smile weakly at him, though, she was beginning to shiver and Scout had just begun to notice that her left eye was watering heavily. He was almost certain that if he had reached out and touched her forehead she'd be burning up but he didn't bother to find out.

"I don't know," he said uncertainly, "You look kinda sick, kid."

"Don't worry about it. You really should go-"

"I could drive ya to town," he offered, "Maybe not in the mawning, but maybe sometime in the evening- you could rest up until then."

Lyra stared at him the sort of admiration he'd literally die to try to gain from his teammates.

"If it would be no trouble-"

"No trouble at all!" Scout exclaimed, but he did have some uncertainty about the claim. There might be some trouble.

The look of admiration intensified and Scout's heart melted. Lyra started to snuggle comfortably into her cocoon.

"Alright, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try, but-"

"Yeah, yeah! I'm goin'!" He said with a wave of his hand. He turned to leave but then stopped himself until something he felt important occurred to him.

"Oh yeah... If someone othah than me comes over here, don't hesitate to kill 'em."

"What?!" Lyra squeaked.

"Yeah, or just start runnin', okay?"

"But why?" she asked a bit hesitantly as if she already knew the answer.

"Because, no one is gonna shows you quite the same hospitality. Now bye! See ya tomorrah I guess."

He was turning to leave again but this time, Lyra stopped him.

"Scout?" she called him, looking rather dumbstruck wrapped up in her sleeping bag.

"Yes?"

"Be safe," she said sincerely, as she looked out into the dark night behind him.

"Uh, you too, kid," he managed to reply. It was an unexpected farewell but he could see how it seemed appropriate.

Lyra blew out the lantern and instantly her small frame was swallowed by darkness, and as Scout shut the door behind him he was left with only the company of the chill of coming winter.

* * *

**So, um, hi there. It's sure has been a while, huh? Like... more than a year. **

**I would like to apologize to the 22 followers who took an interest in my story and had to wait this long for an update. If a year long hiatus were to happen I guess it's best to happen in the setup stages of the story and not half way through where people are deeply invested in the characters. Still I kind of promised you that I'd start doing updates more regularly and you got nothing since. I'm really sorry about that. I won't blame it on life getting in the way of things, even though this chapter was still very hard for me to write I should've tried to finish it sooner.**

**I can promise you this that the next couple of chapters will be up before the end of April if not in the next two weeks. Chapters may get a little shorter to make the story a little more digestible for readers and make it easier on me as a writer, but then again, I always tend to write more **

**Like always, I hope you guys enjoyed! Feedback is greatly appreciated.**

**Edit- So last summer my boyfriend and I made a deal where if I update my story he'd write a little something called Scout's Day Out. I didn't think he'd write anymore of what he showed me and it just sort of became an inside joke between us. Well, low and behold not three hours after I published this chapter I get an update from his account: Scout's Day Out by LOLTreeBark. I know I am a bit biased but I seriously think it's one of the funniest things I've ever read and I honestly think you guys should check it out. Sorry for the shill, but we'd both appreciate it if you gave it a read.**


	4. Chapter 4

The walk back to the living corridors was a rather lonesome and grueling one. Scout hadn't realized how exhausted the day had left him until he shut the door, and could not wait to crawl into the warmth of his bed. It was hard to tell how late it was, though he was certain it couldn't have been very early morning he could hear birds chirping in the distance making it hard to determine the time.

The seemingly confused bird's little tune filled the silence as he walked back to the living corridors. When he was close he saw that only two windows were lit. He knew the one further to the left was his but he wasn't quite sure whom the other belonged to, but it being near the end of the row of windows gave Scout an itching feeling that it was a certain Frenchman.

He moved very cautiously as he walked near the other lit window, trying not to make a sound that might alert the person who was still awake and tried to stay out of the light just in case Spy just so happened to be looking outside.

Scout slipped by and got underneath his window easily, now came the tricky part. His room was on the second floor, so he was going to have to climb over trash cans and find a way to climb up as quietly as possible. He carefully climbed on top of the trash can and then got some footing on top of a window frame and was able to hoist himself up closer to his room. He found that this was not in a position he could stay in for long since he was already beginning to slip. Quickly analyzing the area around him, he noticed the storm drain, which he wished he had noticed earlier, and quickly made a reach for it, catching himself from falling.

He struggled but he eventually managed to get up to the top and reach the small ledge of his bedroom window. Once he was partially secured clinging to the ledge with one hand and the storm drain with the other, he made a quick grab for the window frame.

His fingers roughly slammed into glass. It was closed.

Why the heck was the window closed?

Scout didn't have too long to think of an explanation as he felt himself slipping and quickly had to stabilize himself by clinging for dear life to the storm drain. He made an attempt to pry the window open with his subconscious assuming that the window slipped shut while he was gone. His fingers traced the crevasse of where the window and the ledge met. He tried working them further in between the space but it just wouldn't budge.

Out of frustration he tried to jam his fingers into it, but he may have put a little too much upper body into it because when it did not work, not only did he ruin his hand, but he also managed to pull the storm drain out of place. He made a startled sound as he felt the storm drain shift and before he knew it-

CRASH!

Scout found himself surrounded by trash with the wind knocked out of him and the edge of a now much-dented trash can was digging into his spine. He couldn't breathe. He kept sucking in air but it was like his lungs weren't accepting it. Then he heard a window open.

He struggled to keep his breathing slow and quiet and tried to keep still but he was sure he was suffocating. He saw a lanky figure poke its head out of the other lit window to investigate the crash. It leaned very far out looking for the source of the commotion and Scout just prayed that he was mostly invisible to the person.

The figure then disappeared back into its room and closed the window shut and Scout, not quite having recovered from the fall, immediately shot up from the pile of garbage and ran toward the back door while struggling to fight of the darkening of his vision and his body was sending out shots of pain in protest of moving so fervently so soon.

Once he got to the door he unthinkingly tried the door which was... locked, not surprisingly. Scout quickly began to rummage through his bag in search of a key until he remembered he never carried one because he rarely needed to use one. He then began to desperately feel and kicked at rocks until his foot made a connection with something hollow and then he quickly made a grab for it. He felt around the "rock" until his fingers traced down a crease and immediately tearing it apart to find the key they had left out for these situations (though they didn't exactly have these kinds of situations in mind...)

Scout thrust the key into the keyhole and partially threw himself through the door once he had unlocked it. He sighed with some relief to be back in the building but he still had to make it his bedroom and he had a sinking feeling that a certain teammate didn't stay in his room long after hearing the commotion he made outside. He walked briskly down the halls toward the stairs, careful to be quiet. As Scout begun to ascend the stairs, he bumped into something invisible to the left of him, and only for a second he saw the faint shadow of a tall slender figure from the corner of his eye.

Shit! he thought but he make a sound or even try to confront it, he just ran. He sprinted all the up the stairs and ran towards the small stream of light that was trickling out from the crack of the slightly ajar door of his room. He quickly slipped through the crack and roughly slammed the door behind him. He leaned back into it while panting hard, and he stood there in the silence as he waited for Spy to come knocking on his door but he never came. Scout was relieved to finally be back in his room and he shut the lights off and slipped underneath the covers of his bed.

Despite being extremely exhausted Scout found himself unable to sleep. He, at first, was worried about any future interactions with Spy since he was definitely going to have some curiosity about what just happened, then Scout tried to assure himself that he could BS an answer that would satisfy any questions the Frenchman might have. He can't have any other reasons to suspect him of anything just because he was downstairs at some point of the night, right?

Yet still, Scout found he could not sleep even with the self-assurance. There was something that just didn't feel right about the room that gave Scout a nagging feeling that just kept poking him in the back of his mind. Until it eventually struck him.

It was quiet.

Scout jumped out of bed as his thoughts raced back to the radio he had left on to distract his teammates from his absence. It was off.

He rushed over to the device to investigate the cause of its silence, mostly hoping its batteries had died, but as he pressed his finger down on the power button he was greeted by a smooth talking radio host. He turned it off immediately.

Oh God... He went to go check the window to find that it had been latched shut when it should've been unlocked. His mind then went back to how easily he slipped back into his room despite the fact that he had locked it. Not only had the door been unlocked, but it was open.

Scout slouched over on his bed as the realization began to crush him.

Someone had been in the room.

* * *

**Authors Note: Dun-Dun-DUUUUUN!**

**Well, there's my attempt at trying to end a chapter dramatically. I'm not exactly sure if I succeeded but I hope you guys enjoyed it.**

**The next chapter is going to be pretty short since it's set up for a bigger scene but it felt weird to put with another chapter. Hopefully, it will be up before the end of this week but t****his upcoming week is going to be a bit hectic for me since I have a lot to do for school and then I'm going to a wedding.**

**Anyways, thank you guys so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

"So what were you doing last night?"

It was a question Scout had been dreading all morning. The night before was spent without a wink of sleep. All he could do was lie in bed as his mind tried to work out a means to cope with the coming consequences.

Of course, he had expected inquiries, and of course, he made up some possible answers but his mind went completely blank as he heard the words suddenly spoken nonchalantly in a french accent as he was busying himself with sorting out the weapons loadout he was going to use in today's battle. It startled him. He jumped slightly before he prepared a response to the curious Frenchman.

"Agh, thah was you?!" Scout said, referring to the shadowy phantom that had frightened him the night before, though it wasn't until the words had left his mouth did he realize how forceful and how loud he had said it. However, the only other person left in the supply room was the Engineer who seemed to be too caught up in his own work to pay them any attention. Scout continued clumsily, "You scared the crap outta me! Can't a guy get a glass of watah without someone gettin' on his ass?"

He began to turn toward Spy as he finished his remark with a slight laugh that was quickly stifled as he was greeted by the sight of his teammate towering over him, arms crossed and an accusing eyebrow arched. He wasn't certain what type of facade he should've put forward so he tried to appear clueless and somewhat jovial but the act did not seem to be convincing. Spy glared on until he eventually sighed:

"Your mozer called last night."

Scout's blood froze in his veins immediately. Some of the team's family members were provided with the means of contacting their beloved mercenaries but the process was just too strenuous so keeping in touch fell onto the mercs. Except when a Bostonian woman hasn't heard from her son for four weeks, she would clearly take it upon herself to contact him.

_Oh Gawd_, Scout thought. He felt quite a bit of guilt along with the realization that he was completely screwed. Not only did he expect for this to happen but he also hated the fact that he made such a wonderful woman feel such distress.

"Oh, y-yeah?" he stuttered stupidly.

"Yes," Spy replied casually while he took a long drag on his cigarette, "She was very concerned about you, you see. I just assumed you had forgotten, but when I tried to pass the phone along to you- you just did not seem to be… Around."

Spy gave him another accusing glare. Scout swallowed hard, clearing his throat as he tried to prepare a lie.

"Oh, eh, Spy, I was definitely around. I guess I did fohget, though, I- just got busy…"

"Doing what?"

Scout squirmed as Spy's gaze was beginning to become oppressive.

"Er- Readin'-"

"Reading?!" the Frenchman exclaimed, almost laughing. He took a deep breath as he seemed to take note of the Engineer who was still working in the corner. He was sucking in the corner of his lips for he was clearly trying to fight off a smile as if though the thought was unbelievably amusing. He spoke in a quieter voice, "My apologies, reading what?"

"Comics," Scout practically spat irritably, probably making it the most sincere sounding part of the fabrication.

"Oh," Spy said, less amused. He took another drag on his cigarette trying to regain his serious composure, "Zen where were you? I looked everywhere."

"I was in- " Scout bit down on his lower lip as the gears in his head were spinning quickly to try and think of a place that would be overlooked but not necessarily an odd place to be alone. "-the attic."

"Zee- Attic?" his inquirer said with a hint of doubt.

"Yes," he asserted with deceitful confidence, "the attic."

"You were reading comics in zee- Attic?" Spy relayed back to him one more time.

"Yeah! Now how many times you gonna keep askin'?"

Spy gave Scout another hard glare. Scout could see the gears also working in his head as he mulled over Scout's answers. He shot a glance toward the Engineer, who was still sorting out his things. Then, with a punch of his cigarette, the frenchman was satisfied.

"Well alright…" he sighed, shaking his head dismissively and moving toward the exit, "But don't delay on zat call, Scout, you're going to worry zat poor woman to death."

And with that, he was gone. Leaving Scout relieved and alone with Engie, whom he wanted to have a word with all morning. He took a moment to reorganize his thoughts, and rebuild up his confidence for the interaction with Spy had left him rather shaken.

"Hey, Engie." The Engineer flinched, surprised by the sudden greeting.

"Oh hello Scout," he said with a warm smile, "Gettin' ourselves into trouble a bit early, aren't we?"

"Nah, I ain't in no trouble," Scout assured him coolly, "I was just wonderin'- er- if I could borrow your truck tonight so I could go into town-"

"Alone?" the Engineer asked with a hint of concern, "I don't know about that, they aren't very fond of us."

"Ah, don't worry! I won't be long. I'll do something I gotta do real quick then leave."

Engie scratched the back of his head, looking rather thoughtful. "What exactly do ya have to do over there?"

Scout cleared his throat once again as he got ready to explain the reason he fabricated the night before.

"Last I heard, one of my brothas was movin' up to Alaskar to work on an oil rig. I nevah got a numbah, but I know where he's workin', so I figuhed I'll just send him a lettah to see how he's doin'."

He was quite proud of himself. He hadn't stuttered nor sounded uncertain as he spoke, though lying was certainly easier when who you're lying to isn't constantly interjecting and isn't quite so intimidating.

"Ah, I see," Engie replied, " but do you really need to go to town for that? Miss Pauling could surely send it for you."

"Oh- ah…" Scout got momentarily caught up on the prospect of having an excuse to ask Miss Pauling to come over, but he quickly had to shake his head at the thought as he remembered why he had to go into down in the first place. "Well- I mean- why bothah that lady with somethin' as trivial as a personal lettah. She's busy enough, ain't she? Doin' important stuff. Nah. I-I'd hate to burden her with somethin' a little as a sendin' a simple lettah. It's- ah- it's better to get it out of the way, anyhow."

"Well, if you say so…" The Engineer said giving in, "but you're gonna have to wait a bit past dinner before I can give you the keys."

"Why's that?"

He held up a device for Scout to see which had a screen displaying a few rows of green cartoon depictions of sentries with the exception of one red sentry with had a thick 'X' over what appeared to be its health status.

"One of the border units went out," he explained, "It likely shorted out earlier this week but I hadn't noticed until this morning."

"Ah," Scout replied in attempts to feign interest, "How'd that happen?"

Engie merely shrugged. "It's gettin' cold. Circuits probably froze. I can't be sure until I look at it myself."

Then suddenly, the Administrator's voice filled the air. "You have ten minutes before set up time. Move out to the battlefield now."

"Looks like it time to go." the Engineer sighed, gathering his things and began to leave. Scout nodded and walked beside him.

"You know what's funny?" he said to Scout just before they left the supply room.

"What's that?"

"After all of the times we've been here throughout the years, I never knew this base had an attic."

* * *

**Author's note: Oh boy, I frustrated the hell out of my boyfriend while he was proofreading this. I don't usually write in the accents in the first couple of drafts mostly because I just want to get the dialogue over with so this whole chapter was just jarring to him. I did my best to fix Spy's but I don't really know much beyond replacing 'th' with 'z' and soft 'i's with 'ee' and dropping 'h's but most of his dialogue hasn't had too many instances of those things so I am worried it is a bit jarring for the readers as well. If anyone has advice for writing accents I'd love to hear it.  
**

**Also, my boyfriend likes to play jokes on me and likes to rewrite paragraphs into something that would make this story rated M. It's all in good fun but while editing this I realized he did make quite a few revisions. I was careful to edit them back out but I'm not the best proofreader so if something that's really inappropriate comes out of left field, just tell me and I'll immediately edited it.  
**

**Anyways, sorry for the update being a week late. The workload at school increased with the end of the year quickly approaching so it got pretty hard to churn this out. I'd like to see the next update get up within the first half of May.**

**Hope you guys enjoyed!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Just a heads up, this chapter is pretty long.**

* * *

Scout could've sworn that if the stress of the situation at hand didn't cause his heart to explode, his stomach certainly would. He really fucked up his lie with the attic, he's been to so many bases that it was hard to keep those sort of features straight and now he was sure that Spy and possibly the Engineer knew he was up to something. The Frenchman said nothing more but Scout felt absolute dread every time he caught a glimpse of his accusing glare. The Engineer's demeanor hadn't changed at all since the morning but he was always a lot more subtle when it came to having suspicions, Scout would probably never be able to know unless the Texan outright confronted him about it and that's what he was afraid of a formal confrontation.

The red team had lost again and it had been mostly due to his own failures. That girl was going to ruin him, he just knew it, but the thought of taking the easy way out made his stomach tie painfully up into knots. At first, he thought he hadn't been able to kill her because he couldn't bring himself to hurt a girl, though he still believes that might be part of it, but now he felt there were things deeper within himself than what he was aware of. Those things, though, we're too far away from him, too formless and abstract for him to piece together, but last night something happened to make those things more tangible.

It had been the mention of Vietnam and the inquiries about his time there. He didn't like to dwell on it much but some things were coming back to him every now and then through the course of the day. They caused him just as much stress as his current predicament but he refused to delve deeper to figure out why.

He shook his head of the thoughts and tried to relieve his worries by reminding himself the day was almost over. Presently, he was sitting outside in front of the garage waiting for the Engineer to come back from fixing the border unit. He wasn't quite sure how long it took to fix that sort of thing but the Engineer had left sometime in the afternoon and now it was fairly dark. That did not bode well to Scout and his thoughts traveled to the worst case scenario where the Engineer had needed something from the shed Lyra was in and discovered her.

Has he killed her? Has she killed him?

That was unlikely to Scout, even considering how she managed to pin him against a wall the morning they met he doubted she'd be able to overpower a grown man in the state he'd left her in. Besides, if she had killed him he'd have respawned and be kicking a fuss about the hobo who had attacked him.

He was brought back to reality by the relieving sound of tires crunching over gravel. Scout looked up to find a great weight being lifted off his shoulders as the Texan's truck was beginning to pull up into the driveway.

"Wha took ya so long?" He yelled over in an exasperated laugh while the truck was coming to a stop. The stocky man stepped out of the vehicles. He was absolutely filthy, covered in dirt and oil starting from his yellow hard hat and working shoes. No blood at least…

"Haha, the problem was worse than I thought," he chuckled as he wiped his brow, "Whole parts were completely deteriorated, had to go through the process of the replacing them."

Scout had been walking toward the Engineer to receive the car keys he was holding out but before Scout could take them, they were suddenly pulled away.

"No girls," the Engineer said almost gravely, "and no doin' anythin'... weird in my truck, okay?"

Scout's face begun to flush of color. All he heard at first was the word "girl" and he thought for sure he was doomed. It took another second for the rest of the words to register, in which he merely laughed, "I'm just gonna mail a lettah, Engie."

"I-I know that Scout," Engie began, "But I've also known ya for seven years and I know you have a knack for trouble and what usually factors into it."

Scout was tempted to say something in defense of himself but when remembering his predicament the man seemed to have a point. Finding there was nothing left to be said, he was just about to impart a few quick goodbyes to his teammate when suddenly the door leading inside flew open.

"Ah zere you are, Engineer. Finally came back I see-" It was Spy. Before he could finish his greeting, his eyes fell on Scout who now had the car keys. "Are you going somewhere, Scout?"

"Eh, I am," Scout started. His heart picked up the pace again as if it was trying to break its way out of his chest. Of course, the noisy Frenchman would catch him just before he left. "Imma mailin' a lettah to my brothah."

"Oh!" Spy said with suspicious interest, "Are you going alone?"

"Ah yes," he affirmed as he stumbled backward towards the truck, absolutely desperate to get out of there. "Imma- I'm gonna go now, uuuh bye!"

The Engineer shot him a bewildered look as he awkwardly waved him farewell. "Ah, see ya later Scout, and remember no girls!"

"Yeah, yeah! I'll see ya," Scout plopped himself into the driver's seat and begun to pull out. He watched the base slowly disappear in the distance through the rearview mirror. Before it completely vanished from sight, he saw the tall Frenchman lean over and whisper something to the stocky Texan, who in response gave an unnerving nod.

* * *

It wasn't long until Lyra was sitting next to him in the passenger seat of the truck as they speed down what Scout was fairly certain was a road but it was too dark to really be sure. The first half of the drive was spent in silence with the exception of the sound of wheels driving over rocks and rushing wind whistling past partially closed windows.

Scout hated it.

To him, all silences were awkward silences because he was very used to filling them with words and it always made him uncomfortable when he couldn't think of anything to talk about. He tried to fill the void by turning on the radio but it was a futile effort. The Engineer's truck radio had always been horrible and rarely picked up a signal.

_Well damn,_ he thought. He decided to start shooting off questions to see what sort of conversation he could spark.

"What are you going to do when you get to town?"

"Ah, I'm not sure yet," Lyra replied meekly.

"Well, you really shouldn't stay there," he said in attempts to be somewhat helpful.

"Why not?"

Scout cleared his throat a bit obnoxiously. "It's not the sort of town that's- uh- fond of strangers."

"Ah," she made to signal understanding, and then the conversation ended.

Silence again.

_Well shit._ Scout sat there rather uncomfortably as he drove. His discomfort didn't last long, though, for he noticed Lyra was sitting in her seat with what appeared to be every muscle in her body tensed up, wearing an expression of anxious contemplation as she watched the road as it endlessly rushed toward them and disappeared beneath the vehicle. He immediately felt guilty.

"I mean-" he started to try and reassure her, "I'm soire you'll be fine., anywhere's bettah than the wildahness in wintah, right? I didn mean to go off and worry ya or anythin'."

"What?" His words seemed to bring her out of a trance, though her confusion didn't seem to come from a lack of attention, or at least he assumed it wasn't, but that she just didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"You just look awfully nervous, kid," he explained, "I didn't mean to worry ya is all."

"Oh," she said rather bashfully and then squirmed in her seat, "Nah, I'm not nervous about that."

"Then what are you nervous about?"

The girl bit down on her lip squirmed uncomfortably in her seat again. "Uh," she didn't get much further than that, for at that moment they speed over a ginormous pothole sending them a foot into the air, only to be roughly stopped by their seat belts and forced back down again. She followed this with an uneasy laugh, "Your driving's horrendous."

"Hey- it's not- that- ba-" he was struggling to speak as they drove over multiple large bumps. By the third one, he figured it was time to stop flooring the gas pedal, "It's just a bumpy road…"

In the corner of his eye, he could see she was wearing an amused and knowing smile. If it had been one of his teammates or some unpleasant person it probably would've irritated him, but in truth, he preferred it over her usual anxious expression. He responded with a slight smirk, "Oh… shut up."

She laughed. Before fell back into what he knew would be another inevitable "awkward" silence, Scout began to tell a story about when him and his teammates ( though he was cautious to call them co-workers) had almost been driven off a cliff by Sniper.

It actually wasn't that much of an amusing story, especially compared to the thousands of other stories he could've told but it had just been the first one that had come to mind. It wasn't like it had mattered much to him, though, since scout always had a knack for spicing up stories with slight exaggerations.

The story, in essence, was that the team was moving bases ( or "Headquarters" as he put it) when it began to snow suddenly. No one really cared much about it at the time since everyone was tired and pretty much asleep except for him and the Sniper who were both sitting up front. Scout usually stayed up with the driver, though most of the time they'd probably prefer he didn't, since Scout figured keeping the driver awake and aware was a fair excuse to chat someone's ear off. The snow started to come down harder by the minute until it practically became a blizzard. The road was getting harder to navigate and then all of a sudden a gigantic buck hopped right in front of the van causing Sniper to swerve off the road and wasn't able to break until they were almost dangling off the edge of the cliff. In actuality though they were likely more of ten feet away from it.

Lyra seemed interested enough in his tall tale, for she laughed where it was appropriate to laugh and gasped where it was appropriate to gasp. The air about them had become lighter and Scout felt more at ease as they drove on this way, with him talking and her reacting. It was pleasant; although she didn't seem to be entirely there. She didn't look at Scout much as he talked but kept her gaze somewhere outside the windows and had her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she were trying to hold herself in, though, to be fair, she was probably just cold.

Scout didn't care too much to ask if she was okay, besides he doubted she'd tell him if he cared to ask anyway. He got lost in his own stories , rambling on and exaggerating details to the point his "true" accounts could be considered fantasy and Lyra offered her seemingly distracted engagement until they ended up in the only town for miles.

Teufort.

To an outsider, this little town probably looked like a pleasant little oasis in the midst of the New Mexican Badlands. The shops and houses looked so quaint with their pastel colors and picketed fences. Scout sort of thought that when he first visited Teufort but also felt a sense of eeriness about it. It was just how everything was just a little too clean and the residences smiles just came across a little too friendly. Now after spending quite a bit of time there, it sort of freaked him out especially with how the residence would be so friendly while seething with hatred. Though they were a bit justified in this, the mercs didn't exactly spread peace and happiness every time they showed up to town but the residence way of dealing with them had always been pretty creepy.

It was hard to tell exactly if Lyra felt the same way about the little town or if she'd been quite taken to it for her demeanor had not changed. The only time she really spoke up about anything odd was when they passed by an area surrounded by tall walls topped with barbed wire.

"What's that place?" she inquired.

"It's, uh, a militahy combat trainin' fahcility," Scout explained though it was really the 2Fort base that was for some reason built right next to civilization. There was an air of cluelessness some time later as neither person really knew what to do next. Scout waited until they were fully stopped at a stop sign of an empty street to say, "So, um, should I just drop you off somewhere or what?"

Lyra stirred in her seat again. She reached into the inside of her jacket and rested her hand there as she looked like she was thoughtfully formulating a plan. "Is there a bus stop or something? Like something that might go out of town?"

"No bus… but I think there is a railroad that runs through here."

Lyra opened her mouth but Scout didn't waste any time listening to what she was going to say because he already knew. The car lurched forward and they were off to the train station.

There wasn't much talking from then on, and seeming to expect it, Scout instinctively turned on the radio and two voices blared from the speakers to signify the radio was now working. The voices were discussing something along the lines of the existence of fate or free will but since Scout cared nothing for philosophy, he quickly began spinning the dial until the words to "She's Not There" rang out in the air. It was loud enough to drown out one's own thoughts but Scout saw no need to turn it down although his passenger may have appreciated it if he did.

They listened to at least five songs before they found their way to the train streets had been fairly empty. They had only passed on a group of people that were walking on the sidewalk. They were a pretty shady group of guys that they ended up having to wait next to as they waited for the stoplight to go green and the guys wanted to get across the street. Scout only had a slight glimpse of them: he saw they were gesturing towards the truck in what he hoped was them ridiculing a filthy old truck and not signifying that they recognized it. Lyra had shrunk into herself, clearly unnerved by the encounter.

Once parked in the station's parking lot, the radio died with the engine and Lyra was already out the door and on her feet with all her things in hand. Even though Lyra was probably starting down the parking lot Scout didn't hurry to put away his keys and even took a moment to look around the front seats of the truck and noticed Engie had left his wallet in one of the cup holders.

He took a peek inside and found about twenty bucks in it. He took the money without much thought as he figured he might need it later. His only justification for this was that the Engineer wouldn't mind if he gave it to someone in need. Everyone knew Engie was soft like that.

When Scout finally stepped out of the truck, Lyra had already been halfway across the parking lot. She may have gotten twenty feet before she stopped abruptly and turned to face him, perhaps thinking herself awkwardly hovered there as she waited, taking a couple of uncertain steps towards him but never really getting that much closer to him. By the time he reached her she had started fiddling with her hat and continued to do so as she walk beside him. It took him a moment to realize that she was trying to shove all her hair underneath her hat, much like how it was yesterday morning.

"Why do ya wear yo hair like that?" He asked as it now was making him curious.

"Huh? Oh… I usually keep my hair short - well- shorter because it's easier to maintain. When it get long-ish like this I just prefer to tuck it away so it doesn't bother me."

Scout took a moment to wonder why this "longish" hair hadn't been bothering her the night before but he merely shrugged as he didn't think it mattered much.

The whole station was outside, set up with a shanty ticket booth and public bathrooms to the side. Its shantiness was made even more apparent by the pretty pastel colored buildings surrounding it. Scout thought it was rather odd for Teufuort to have a town that seemed to care quite a bit about it's aesthetic but it later occurred to him very few people left Teufort and it was more than likely that not many people visited either.

They walked past a bulletin board and a series of newspaper stands. Lyra took a keen interest in the newspapers, seeming to take long hard looks at each one until moving onto the next one.

Scout turned his attention to the bulletin board and was immediately face to face with a tiny faded image of himself along with other depictions of his teammates as well as the entire BLU team. WANTED was plastered over the top of the poster. It seemed like whatever organization that had put it up was either under budget or very lazy as they had only made one poster with about two dozen names and faces on it.

Not wanting to explain to Lyra why his face was on a wanted poster if she were to look over at it, he quickly grabbed at it but with such force, he tore it in half and in his panic he ripped the other piece off the board.

Lyra's head snapped towards him in response to the sound of ripping and crumpling paper. All she saw of the act was Scout stuffing something into his bag and there being a large empty space on the board.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah nothin'," Scout said, "Just takin' a flyah that looked- uh- interestin'."

She nodded and turned her attention back to the new stands. There was a newspaper that rested on top of the one at the end. Teufort Tribunal, read the top. She took it up under her arm and they continued on to the ticket booth.

There were a fair amount of people around, with about four people in line for tickets, a couple cuddling for warmth somewhere to the side and two or three people scattered about the stations benches waiting for a train to come. Destinations were listed in large letters above the booth window. There was a map to the side which marked all of the destinations but it was faded and Lyra didn't seem to be interested in leaving her spot in line. Without taking her eyes off the sign she unzipped her jacket and revealed an interior pocket. From it she pulled a small, thin blue book and in white lettering "American Atlas" was written on the cover.

She then pulled out a black pen and flipped to some page. Her eyes begun to move quickly between the sign and the atlas. Scout peeked over her shoulder to see a map of the southwestern region of the united states. The page was covered in scribbles done in red and black ink. All over Nevada and Arizona were little circles, X's and question marks and New Mexico was starting to get it's fair share too. One circle encompassed a significant part of the map, followed by a boldly written question mark. Scout wasn't all that knowledgeable geography but he was fairly certain that it marked the New Mexican Badlands.

Lyra must have noticed Scout was looking over her shoulder because she pulled the book closer and turned away from which blocked his view of the atlas. There was a moment of shuffling paper which ended with a click of her pen. The atlas was slipped back into the interior pocket of her jacket. Lyra didn't say anything about the book and Scout didn't think much of it to comment.

The line went rather quickly. They lady running the booth was a tired young woman who spoke in the sort of chipper voice you'd expect from a resident of a town that was known to be overly friendly. "What can I do for you tonight?"

"One ticket for Tucumcari, New Mexico, please," Lyra replied with a courteous smile.

"That will be about three dollars and seventy-five cents, miss!"

Her smile lost all sincerity in that instant, but she didn't miss a beat in reaching for her backpack and fished out a worn down brown wallet. Scout watched her open it, revealing a single five dollar bill. He shot her an "Are you serious?" sort of look, and she merely gave him an embarrassed smile.

"I'll pay foh it," Scout sighed while he handed the lady the twenty dollar bill he had taken from the Engineer's wallet.

"Scout-"

"Thank you very much, sir! Here's one ticket for Tucumcari, New Mexico!" The lady chirped on as she handed Lyra her ticket and Scout his change.

"$3.75 for a train ticket… How ridiculous!" Lyra muttered to herself before turning to Scout with her five dollar bill held out to him, "I'd feel awfully bad if I don't pay you back, so here."

Scout shook his head feeling awfully generous for with his teammate's money, "Nah, it's fine, kid. Here keep the change too."

He placed the change in her hand, and she just looked at it.

"That's quite a bit of money, Scout," she replied, "I think I'll be okay with what I have, don't worry I don't need it."

"Oh just take it!" he said a little frustrated, "For a hobo yo kind of proud."

Lyra faltered at the statement. She looked at the money thoughtfully before she gave an almost defeated laugh. "I guess you're right. Thank you, Scout."

She stuffed the bills into her wallet and slipped it into a small pocket in her backpack. She gave him another sincerely grateful smile that he was becoming accustomed to. The little thing probably thought of him as some sort of saint, and Scout was almost giddy about that thought.

The two found their way to the station platform that was printed on Lyra's ticket. There were about two other people there sitting on benches as they waited for the train to come.

"Tucumcari, huh?" Scout said while reading the platform sign, "So I take it yo not in any hurry teh get back home foh the holidays?"

"Hah! Not a chance!" she almost exclaimed followed by a small cough, "My pop would probably shoot my brains out if I turned back up on his porch."

"Things are that fucked up between ya?"

Lyra started coughing again, it seemed she hadn't quite gotten over that stage of her cold yet. Once she recovered her demeanor seemed to lack energy.

"They were, yes."

Scout lulled slightly in his speech for he begun to realize that he had accidentally stumbled into some pretty touchy territory. He decided to prod a little bit more into her background since he figured this was his last opportunity to ever ask.

"How long's it been since ya last seen 'em?"

Lyra opened her mouth but then shut it again as if she thought better of it. She begun to squirm a bit, it seemed she did that when she got uneasy. "I'd say about two- three years? Probably two."

"Yo not soire?"

"It all blurs together," she laughed.

"Doncha think maybe he's cooled off by this point? It has been yea's, kid."

She smiled at him almost sadly while looking as if she was starting to shake her head but trying not to.

"I guess you're right but it's just- it's a bit more complicated than a typical family feud, Scout."

"Oh okay," Scout didn't really know what to say to that. The conversation seemed to have died at that very moment for Lyra pulled out the newspaper she took from earlier and started reading it. So much for getting to know her better.

Figuring he didn't have her attention, Scout decided to look at the Wanted poster he had ripped off the bulletin board. He carefully pulled out the crumpled paper out of his backpack and smoothed it all out. It was the lower half, which had all his teammates and himself listed. The poster had listed their class names in quotes, along with a cash value for their capture and their crimes, which were plentiful. The row above all their depictions hadn't completely made it but the names and descriptions were still legible. He read them out of boredom: "Jared Bradley/Crime: Robbery, Breaking and Entering /Reward: $500 - Janet Mason/Crime: Theft/Reward: $300 - Madison Hughes/ Crime: Murder/Reward: $1000 -"

Choo! Choo!

The sound of the coming train broke Scout's concentration. He looked up to see a Northern Express train engine pull into the station. He tensed up almost out of instinct. He'd been killed by that company more times than he'd care to count.

Lyra jumped to her feet and took a step toward the slowing train.

"This looks like this is it!" She chirped.

"Ah, yeah," he felt as if the world had been completely lifted off his shoulders. It was all finally over. Now there were not going to be any more distractions, no more stress, and thankfully, no reason for Spy to be all over him for acting suspiciously. He rose to his feet and stood beside her. He looked at her to see whatever hair she hadn't managed to trap beneath her hat gently wisping around her face. She had a slight smile, looking just as relieved as he was.

His heart fell as he looked at her. He didn't think he'd miss her much, but he knew he'd definitely remember her. The situation was just too unique to forget and she seemed to have some sort of an unexplainable impact on him. He knew that there were going to be times his thoughts would wander to her, like where she'd end up and whether or not she ever went home and why she didn't want to go back in the first place. He shrugged as he figured he was just going to have to live with the mystery.

He became slightly disheartened at the idea that maybe she wouldn't remember him. He wasn't sure what was considered unique to a wanderer of possibly three years, especially since things "blur together", and he worried the girl that stared at him so gratefully would forget him in another two weeks or so.

She smiled sweetly at him as she realized he was staring at her. He smiled back. The train came to a complete stop. A door to their right flew open and out stepped as a small fat man with round wire-framed glasses. About eight tired passengers followed him, all either rubbing their eyes or looking around their new environment- most looking fairly disappointed.

"Excuse me, sir," Lyra said as she approached the tiny man, "is this the train to Tucumcari?"

The man took a moment to consult a tiny notebook and then nodded. "Yes, miss, but we're going to be stationed for another twenty minutes or so to refuel."

"That's fine," she said politely and begun gesturing toward the train, "Is it alright if I go on anyway?"

"Of course! We'll check tickets at departure."

"Great!" Lyra turned back to Scout, who was watching with detached interest, "Well it looks like this is where we part ways, huh?"

"Yeah, it seems so," Scout replied, still smiling slightly.

She held her hand out to him. "I'd like to thank you very much for everything, Scout. You don't know how much this all means to me."

He laughed slightly. That was enough to relieve his fears that he wouldn't be forgotten by her so soon. He took her hand and firmly shook it.

"It was good knowin' ya, kid. Doan getcha-self killed out there, alright?"

Lyra nodded, "Haha, I won't, Scout. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

She released his hand and turned towards the door. She thanked the little man as she entered the train. He could see she took the window seat. She saw him and waved to him and he waved back.

At this point Scout was feeling good about himself and decided it was time to go, seeing that Lyra was probably on her way out of the Badlands for good.

"Is that him?" A voice spoke up from behind him before he even had a chance to leave.

"Yeah, it is," another deep voice responded. A ginormous hand clasped down on Scout's shoulder and begun tugging him away from the train. "I think you better come with me, buddy."

* * *

**Author's note: Oh boy this was a really long chapter. I hope you all were able to get through it because I'm worried that it was pretty boring. The next chapter will hopefully be a little better, it's definitely shorter and a bit more interesting. Sorry this chapter was late, as you can see it's length was definitely a hindrance to its completion along with other things such as school and work. Next chapter should be out before next week because it's already written, it just needs to be typed and edited.  
**

**I will probably be making some edits to this chapter in the future because I recognize it's not perfect and needs some polishing but they'll likely just be minor changes.**

**Criticism is welcome, this chapter definitely needs it in my opinion.**

**And of course, thank you guys so much for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

Whatever touching feeling Scout was experiencing from the moment before was gone as he was being forcibly dragged away from the platform. He would've put up more of a fight but the whole turn of events had bewildered him so much that he was absolutely stunned.

There was a group of six men who were crowding around him. Before he could be whisked away by this group of strangers, he caught a glimpse of Lyra who was watching the scene unfold with her hands and face pressed against the window. He had been dragged into an alley, two of the biggest guys roughly secured his arms. He struggled to get away but it proved to be a fruitless effort. About half of the men were big burly creatures, two were short and stocky men, and there was one guy that was so scrawny that Scout probably could've scoffed at without feeling a sense of irony. He wondered if they were the men they had passed on the road from earlier, and he had a feeling he was right.

The assumed leader of the pack was the only burly guy that wasn't helping in keeping Scout restrained. He stood over him like an ivory tower, glaring hatefully down at him. His jacket was unzipped, revealing a wife-beater that hung low enough to show off a tattoo that was plastered across his chest which read "FORTERS".

_Aw shit!_ Scout thought to himself. He was familiar with the group but never had an actual encounter with them. A couple of his teammates had, and told him all about it. He wasn't all that scared of them but they were definitely going to be a pain to deal with them.

The Forters were a small gang in Teufort consisting of men who shared as much pride in their small town as Soldier did for America. They had hoped to become the town's militia to protect Teufort from any invading forces, but since Teufort was never really in any danger of invasion the group became a gang of fanatical vigilantes that were willing to impose justice for offenses as minor as thinking that maybe Teufort wasn't that great (and yes that is considered a crime under Teufort law). Although there was one threat to the town the gang did have had actual justification in fighting against and that was… Well, the mercs themselves.

"Which one's this one?" the leader as he looked over Scout, rubbing his chin.

"It's one of the 'Scouts' by the looks of it," the stocky man to his left replied gruffly while consulting wanted poster, but this one seemed to be smaller and fresher than the one Scout had taken from the bulletin board. It appeared to him that it was only the profiles of the eighteen mercs who had been terrorizing their town for as long as they could remember.

The man leaned over to look at the paper and then nodded as if to confirm this. "Ah alright," his attention returns back to Scout with a devious smile, "Hello Scout."

"The fuck you want?" Scout instantly spat back.

The leader chuckled, "Easy now, we're all simple men who just want to protect our city from a simple threat- you mercenaries- and also- well you've got quite a bounty on your head, buddy, hehe, and we could all use the money."

The group snickered amongst each other and some nodded in agreement. The leader continued, "Now we'd all be willing to just turn our heads and pretend this little encounter didn't happen on one condition…"

Scout took a moment to struggle out of the stranger's grasp, failing once again. "And what's that?"

"You just gotta tell us where your friends are hiding-"

"Ha! and what are ya gonna do? Storm the damn base or somethin'?"

The group was shocked by his response, some probably realizing how silly it was to think they could to try and overtake trained killers in their own element and were now just embarrassed. The leader stayed firm none the less, "That's none of your concern, but the offer still stands, if you tell us where they are, we'll let you off scot free."

The problem presented to Scout was less of a moral dilemma and more of a selfish choice. On one hand, he had enough confidence in his team to wipe out the gang without a problem and he revealed in the thought of these Forter bastards getting their asses kicked. On the other hand, if it got back to the higher ups he provided classified information on a location of a secret base to a fanatical group of vigilantes then he'd probably lose his job, and even though his team was made mostly of assholes, he liked his job.

"Yeah, and what if I doan tell ya anythin'?" he asked in attempts to get more information that'd help him make a decision.

The scrawniest man unsheathed a gigantic knife and held it to his throat. "Or else-" he growled.

_Now who can argue with that?_ he thought. He was well aware that if he died here there would be no second chances.

"Back off, John!" the leader snapped, "You know you'd be leaving us out a lot of money if you-"

The scrawny guy, now named John, immediately removed his blade from Scout's neck and sheathed it.

"Yeah, yeah I know!" John muttered, "I was trying to get him to talk, I wasn't really gonna-"

The leader dismissed him the man with the wave of his hand, and he fell back into line. "As I was saying- If you don't want to say anything we'll just hand you over to the authorities, collect our dough, and they'll do what they please with you."

Scout struggled again, uselessly, and turned the choices over in his head. He could either speak, see these idiots get a brutal ass kicking but lose his job, or he could stick around in a creepy little town and hope his team bails him out before he'd most likely be lynched. Neither one had appealed to him, it seemed fighting his way out seemed like the best option, but how could he possibly escape from these goons grip-?

"Hello- Gentlemen," a little voice chirped from somewhere, "Is there a problem here?"

Every man turned their heads toward the source of the voice. Scout couldn't see past them, but he managed to get on his tip-toes for a brief moment and before being pulled back down his caught a glimpse of a filthy green cap on a tuff of sandy colored hair.

_Oh my god-_ Scout's heart practically stopped. _What the hell is she doing over here?_

"Is that your boyfriend?" John sniggered to him.

Normally, Scout would've punched a man for such a remark but the fact that he was 1) restrained and 2) too caught up in a cocktail of emotions to really care about what the bastard said. He was scared out of his mind over why she was over here, but he was also a little relieved he wasn't the only person who thought Lyra was a boy.

"Move on, buddy, there's nothin' to see here," the leader hollered over to her. Scout couldn't see her reaction but judging by how the group of men returned their attention back to him he assumed the timid girl had scampered back to her train.

Except this assumption was quickly proven false. Soon she lost the men's attention, there was a sound of someone clearing their throat and her voice spoke up in an assertive tone, sounding somewhat louder, if not closer to the group:

"Now, I'm sure you're all reasonable people if you don't mind that I interject-" a tiny hand gently pushed its way past the wall of men and rested on the leader's arm. She managed to poke her head through and made direct eye contact with Scout, looking concerned but kind of calm, just before the leader snapped at her.

"Hands off!" he barked. He pushed her away and in an instant his fist collided with her mouth, "Now that's what you get for not mindin' your own goddamn business! Now scram!"

Lyra stumbled back from the blow with her hands immediately covering her mouth. She disappeared from view as the leader blocked Scout's line of sight while he repositioned himself within the little crowd.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Scout screamed as he seethed with anger. The men holding him in place seemed to genuinely struggle to keep him restrained. "That was a goddamn woman for christ sake!"

The leader turned extremely pale, "What- Are you-?"

They all turned to stare at Lyra, who was still standing there, trembling terribly as she coddled her hurt lip. She pulled her hand away, stained with blood.

"Oh my God-" the leader murmured. He approached her guiltily, wringing his hands. She didn't look at him. Her gaze seemed to be fixed on her bloody fingertips. "Hey, Miss, I'm awfully sorry. If I had known I wouldn't have - Gosh- look, we'll make it up to you but first, we need to step aside while we work this out."

She didn't respond at first, she just stared at her shaking hand. Her gaze then switched to Scout. Her eyes looked so bright. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, she looked so scared and absolutely stunned that she'd been hit.

Then suddenly- her eyes darkened and there was nothing but anger. In one instant that shaking hand became a fist which was then being driven into the leader's face.

"Fuck you!" she snapped. She went in for another hit, striking him right in the nose.

"Wh-what the hell," the leader stuttered, never suspecting he'd be attacked by the tiny creature. Her blows didn't seem to have much effect for the beast of a man still stood his ground despite his shock. She went in for another blow but he quickly caught her wrist. Unperturbed, she struck him in the jaw with her other hand, but he immediately secured that hand too. "Jesus Christ, lady, calm down."

She then proceeded to kick him in the nuts. Twice.

The man dropped to his knees in pain, but he stubbornly clung to her wrists. The group of men watched as she drove her feet repeatedly into his ribs and scene had completely bewildered them. Scout had almost gotten completely watching the scene himself, even though his first interaction with Lyra had been rather violent, he never imagined that tiny little thing being such a savage during a fight.

Then Scout remembered his predicament. His arms were currently being restrained by two goons who clearly had more muscle than brains. He decided to steal Lyra's tactic. He kicked the man to the left of him in the groin and he went down immediately. The goon to his right noticed and tried to restrain him again but Scout socked him in the jaw before he got the chance to. Not wanting to risk capture by diverting from an effective method, he brought him down with a kick to the balls as well.

The remaining three men snapped to attention upon realizing Scout was free. They wasted no time trying to apprehend him, the first stocky man landed a hit right in his jaw but Scout remained unphased. He had taken worse things than a fist to the face before. The second guy was trying to secure his arms but only managed to wrap his arms around his shoulders, now probably trying to figure out if and how he could maneuver Scout into a choke hold. John, the scrawny man, though standing at attention, watched on- clearly clueless about what he should do next.

The first man managed to get some good hits on Scout as he struggled to defend himself with another man clinging to his shoulders. The man kept aiming for the face- almost every second or so a burst of pain shot through him- first the eye, then the nose, then the jaw, and then the eye again. His lips and nose were bleeding heavily, streaming in thick drops that trickled down his chin and neck.

Scout hadn't quite given up, he was beginning to hang limply to the other man's arms. The blows kept coming and Scout couldn't hit back. He was buckling at the knees at this point but then- small, red sleeved arms were being wrapped around his attacker's neck and then tiny legs were now clinging tightly to the man's torso.

"What the fuck?!" the man screamed as he stumbled back and began to frantically try to rip the savage girl off his back, "Get off of me, you crazy little bitch!"

After she established a good grip on him, she began to claw at his eyes and pulling hair. The way the man screamed one might think he was being mauled by a wild animal. Scout saw his chance to escape as he quickly broke free of the man clinging to him, swiping a foot through his legs and sending him tumbling to the ground. With one strong kick to the head, the man was out cold.

"Aaaah!" a shrill scream brought Scout's attention to Lyra, who was being yanked off the stocky man's back by his scrawny friend. Her legs flailed about wildly and in one desperate thrust of her legs she landed a kick scare in the middle of the man's shoulders, sending him forward into Scout's fists.

The man stood dazed. Scout smirked at him with a bloody smile. One blow to the side of the head sent the man spiraling to the ground where he didn't dare to get back up.

Lyra and John were both wrestling in the dirt at this point. The leader, who had been slumped over to the side since Lyra had finished with him, was now sitting up, watching as Lyra took another cheap shot and kneed his follower in the balls. He looked about himself, surprised to see his entire gang was on the ground writhing in pain. Standing amongst them was Scout, tall and confident, giving him a look that just daring him to fight him.

"Guys," he called to the group of men, "Let's get out of here."

Only four of the six men rose shakingly to their feet. One of the largest men scooped up his unconscious friend and moved away from Scout while shooting him nasty looks. John was still laying on the ground, cupping his crotch as he tried to get over the pain. Lyra sat next to him as she tried to catch her breath. She was smiling a relieved smile at Scout as it was clear that the fight was now officially over. John was groggily coming back to his senses- also seeming to come to the same realization that his friends had lost.

_Toot! Toot!_

A train whistled loudly in the distance. Lyra immediately jumped to her feet, looking as pale as a ghost. She was about to run but before she could even take the second step the scrawny man grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back into the dirt.

"You stupid bitch," he muttered as he pinned her to the ground. She stared up at him with fearful eyes the moment he unsheathed his knife and placed it against her throat. "You just had to get involved, huh? You cheated us out of a lot of money, Miss, and you're gonna goddamn pay for it!"

The sight made Scout furious and forced him to act out immediately.

"Get the hell ovah youhself, and let it go," Scout exclaimed. He ripped the man off the frightened young woman. There was a startled gasp as he did it. He pushed the man against a wall and his fingers had laced around John's neck. He felt angry as hell all of a sudden. Perhaps the idea of going through all this trouble to get her over here and just have her get her throat slit was just too frustrating of a thought for him.

"Scout- You're gonna kill him."

He said nothing in response. The man's eyes were practically bulging out of his head and he tightened his grip. It was satisfying to see the man struggling to breathe, and Scout felt it was well deserved. It was like he was lost in the act.

"Scout! Scout! Please, you have to stop!" she pleaded, but he didn't see the need to. John's face was now turning a pleasing shade of purple.

A small fist collided with the side of his head. It didn't hurt much but the surprise of being hit had been enough to make him let go of his victim. The scrawny man pushed Scout to the ground and dashed away from the scene, disappearing into the alley in just a matter of seconds.

"What the hell?!" he snapped, absolutely furious that she had hit him and letting that man get away. He glared up at the stupid girl but his angry fell away as he made eye contact with the wide-eyed, terrified creature.

He wondered who she saw right then. Some maniac, probably. He didn't know why he cared what she thought of him, she was supposed to be leaving so it shouldn't have mattered. Though, somewhere in his heart, he knew it did. He made this girl think he was a saint- a hero. Now, she must have seen a bloodthirsty psycho. He didn't realize he liked being thought of so well now that he had ruined her image of himself.

All he did was stare at her, almost pleading for her to forgive what he tried to do. He expected her to run away but she just stared back at him with a shocked expression. They stared at each other for a long while in complete silence. It wasn't until Lyra gave a nervous laugh that the tense moment almost immediately defused.

"It- It got kind of scary at the end there, huh?" she said along with a nervous smile.

"Ye-Yeah. I-It did," Scout stuttered. He rose to his feet. She continued to give him a weary smile.

"They got you pretty good," she said while gesturing to his battered face. He didn't doubt the statement, he could already feel the bruises forming around his eyes.

"Ha, I can say the same about you, kid," he snickered. He took her face up into his hands to get a better look at the damage. Her body went rigid to his touch, and her eyes were wide, staring up at him but never making eye contact for his gaze was quickly glossing over the cuts and bruises. Dark rings were already forming around her eyes and her face was disturbingly blood. At first, he thought her nose and lips were bleeding excessively but his anger returned to him as he realized she had a cut on her chin. The knife must've grazed her when Scout had pulled the man off of her. "Jesus, you should've let me kill 'em."

Lyra pushed him away. "I'm fine, Scout."

"I know- it's just-" he gritted his teeth. He didn't know why he was so angry. "Anyway, I guess, thanks for savin' my ass."

"Don't be so modest, you did most of the work, you know?" she laughed, "Besides, what kind of ass would I be if I left a friend to fend for themselves?"

Scout was stunned by her remark. Friend? That was used to refer to him? It felt weird to think of someone like that so soon, but after considering the mess the two had just been through he felt the term was appropriate. It relieved and excited him to know she thought of him that way.

"Well, that means a lot to me, kid."

She smiled warmly at him and they walked back to the station together. There was something rather off-putting about it now. It just seemed a bit… emptier. Then it hit him, and Scout's heart sunk as he recalled the whistle they had heard moments earlier.

"Shit!" Lyra ran toward the empty track and saw the train's lights becoming more distant. A sense of panic was plastered across her face, "We-we missed it!"

"Pahapes- maybe we could buy ya another ticket?" Scout said in attempts to reassure her.

She stared at him, horrified, and shook her head. "No- it's not that it's-"

She took a moment to breathe. She couldn't bring herself to say it. "I left everything on there."

"W-what?" His mouth gaped as he now realized the girl's shoulders were no longer being pulled down by her heavy backpack.

Scout would never admit it but the look on Lyra's face as she watched the train drive away had touched his heart in a way he hadn't felt in years. It was amazing how one's face, though bloodied and bruised, could go from happy and warm to ashened and devastated in a matter of seconds. His mouth hung open in horror as she watched the vehicle's lights disappear into the night, taking everything essential to her survival with it.

In the light beneath the streetlamp, her eyes had become noticeably brighter making it clear that she was holding back a wave of tears. Her eyes met his for a brief moment as she realized he was staring at her. It was hard to tell with her face being all banged up but she blushed before she turned away from Scout, taking a moment to wipe her eyes.

Once again Scout was subjected to another pitiful sight though this one was more heart wrenching than the morning they'd met. Perhaps it was because he had gotten to know her a little more and she had graciously awarded the title of "friend" or maybe there was something more emotional about the slow and creeping realization that all hope was lost. Scout had felt all this on some unconscious level; however, his thoughts were far less complex for the only thing on his mind was that it was mighty awkward to be the sole witness to a crying girl.

"Ah, kid," called out uncertainly.

"I'm fine," she mumbled as her body immediately straightened though heaved a couple times as she took a couple of slow breaths. She turned back to face him with a rather calm, but defeated expression. She spoke more clearly, "I'm fine. I'll find somewhere to sleep and I'll wait for the next train- maybe my things will be at the next station-" Her voice faltered as she reached down toward her pocket. The look on her face reminded Scout that she had slipped her wallet into her backpack. She didn't burst into tears like he thought she would. She took a deep, shaking breath and remained in a thoughtful silence until she begun to have a coughing fit. Her cough had gotten particularly nasty over the past couple of days, it was wet and violent as if her lungs were struggling to breathe through a thick layer of mucus.

_God, this is sad_, he thought. He discreetly checked his own pockets, disappointed to find he had no money to himself and he was certain he had given her all of the Engineer's cash.

"Hey, look," Scout started in hopes of suggesting a possible solution, "let's just go back to the base. You'd be safe in the shed foh anothah night or two, and I could sneak ya some supplies-"

"No- Scout-" she wheezed between coughs. She paused to let the fit pass, leaving her body shaking and a whistle in her breathing. "You've done a lot for me- you don't-" she had to clear her throat before she continued, "You don't need to do anymore, I'll be fine. I've been in worse spots before, hehe. You really don't have to worry, I'll think of something."

She finished her words with a straightening of her posture and a beaming smile, perhaps in attempts to instill a sense of confidence in her claims, but even Scout could tell she was afraid.

"No," Scout replied. Lyra's air of confidence begun to crumble, "Yo not gonna be fine. Yo gonna freeze to death on whatevah pahk bench you sleep on while chokin' on yo own lungs."

"Scout-" He stepped closer to her, perhaps it was his height or just the look on his face but she immediately faltered in her speech.

"And lemme tell you this: this town hates two things-" he demonstrated this by holding up two bandaged fingers. "Strangahs," he pointed his finger roughly into her sternum, "and the likes of me. And unfohtunately, you backed me up in a fight where I kicked the asses of a small but violent gang, and they aren't gonna be too happy. Thing is, they ain't gonna find me, but they'll sure as hell are gonna find you if ya stay here and from what ya seen from earliah is that they ain't above dishin' out vengeance on some poor kid."

Lyra looked utterly crushed by his words, but she was trying her best not to show it. She just stared at him sadly for a long moment, then sighed while shaking her head, "This is a bad idea, Scout, I don't want to get you into any more trouble."

"Ah, don't worry about it! Now come on," he said plainly, motioning for her to follow him as he begun to walk towards the parking lot. She only watched him at first, hesitant, but as the late night breeze passed over them she shivered and found the motivation to follow. She hastened her pace until she was walking by his side, still looking rather glum.

"Besides," he began in attempts to lift her spirits, "what kind of ass would I be if I left a friend to freeze to death."

She smiled at his words, though the gesture did very little to cut through the melancholy that hung about in the air. There had been a gap between the two as the walked but Lyra gradually gravitated toward Scout until she slumped her head against his shoulder. It was at that moment that Scout realized how exhausted she must've been and he was beginning to feel pretty tired himself. He didn't miss a beat in wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guided her back to the truck.

It gave him a rather odd, but enjoyable feeling. He found he had grown rather fond of her company, and even though the night had been utter chaos, he was glad their good-byes were pushed aside to a later date.

However, he'd later come to regret the whole night in a time that then seemed like an all too distant future. He'd think back to when he was driving back to the base and glancing over at the feeble, battered creature sleeping in the passenger seat and he'd wonder if it had been right to take her back home or if he should've just let her go on her own way, if she would've been better off fending for herself. It would be then he'd realize another reason why one should avoid feeding strays: it makes them far too hard to let them go.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I liked writing this chapter and I'm very glad I'm starting to get into a little more action. Sorry if this stories been a bit slow, I've been just wanting to develop somethings like Lyra and Scout's relationship so scenes like the one above wouldn't feel so forced? Did I suceed? Or do I need to put a little more work into all this?** **Let me know what you guys think in the reviews!**


	8. Chapter 8

By the time they reached the base, it was already the next day, but it was hard to tell what time. It was very dark and cold, but Scout found it almost rejuvenating. The cool air felt good in his lungs, and there was a small hum of crickets in the air. He recalled how loud they were only a few months ago but now they were much fainter, and he knew they would continue to do so until all the crickets froze to death, taking Autumn with them.

Scout pulled up to the shed with Lyra sleeping in the passenger seat. He gently nudged her on the shoulder, and she woke with a start. She defensively flailed her arms before she stiffened up into a little ball, staring at him with a surprised and startled look.

"Ha, you okay?" he laughed.

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, her body began to relax, "You just startled me is all."

They both got out of the car and Lyra immediately began to shiver. She had leaned against the door frame before she disappeared into the darkness of the shed. She smiled at him with her little body shaking in the cold.

"Thanks so much for everything, Scout- again," she giggled, "I'm sure the amounts of thanks you've gotten has started to get annoying at this point."

"Of course not!" he assured her. It was no secret that he loved her gratitude.

"Ha-! Good. Well, I guess we should go now, huh?"

"Yeah."

But neither one left. Lyra stood there watching him from the doorway, her face still looking painfully bloody, and Scout stayed where he was. Her smile fell slightly as the only noise between them was the dying sounds of Autumn.

"Scout-" she eventually spoke up, her teeth were beginning to chatter, "I was thinking about what one of those thugs said- Somethin'- something about being cheated out of a lot of money?"

"Yeah, whatta 'bout it?"

"What'd he mean by that?"

She was looking at him with a sort of nervous curiosity. He cleared his throat as he laughed out a lie, "Not a clue, kid- haha! Probably thought I was rich or something."

"Oh," she chuckled. Her teeth were chattering loudly now, "I-I-I guess good night then?"

"Um, yeah. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she turned away, but before her shivering frame disappeared from view, Scout thought he should ask her just one more thing before he left.

"Hey-kid?"

Her bloody face turned back toward him, giving him a questioning look from the shadows. "Yes?"

"You want me to get you something like a sleeping bag or somethin'?"

He half expected her to say no or insist that he'd done enough, but through chattering teeth, she gave him a helpless smile.

"Please."

* * *

On the drive back to the living corridors, Scout decided that she probably needed more than a sleeping bag. Her face was pretty banged up, and it would probably not do her much good if she had left it untreated. The same went for her cold; her cough was getting worse, and he doubted she'd last much longer if she didn't get some medicine.

As he pulled up into the driveway, he found that there were still lights on from the first floor. He wondered how late it was and which one of his teammates was still up and about. When he stepped inside a gust of warm air washed over him. The place just seemed so cozy that he was tempted just to walk upstairs and curl right up into bed, but he reminded himself of what he needed.

Sleeping bag, medicine, bandages.

He crept silently through the halls as he tried to find his way to inventory. The lights in the lounge were still on. It seemed to be empty, and Scout took a moment to look around the room. It smelled of liquor and cigarettes, and there was an abandoned poker game on the table. Scout felt a twinge of jealousy for having missed out on something that seemed to have been a good time.

Then, his heart seized immediately upon seeing the small trail of cigarette smoke slowly rising toward the ceiling. The source was a cigarette placed between two gloved fingers, but the holder seemed to have fallen asleep in his chair.

It was Spy, of course, probably waiting for him to come home so he could interrogate him. Scout couldn't help but smile at the Frenchman's failed attempt to trap him, and he swiftly left the room without a sound.

He eventually found his way to the inventory. They kept a few miscellaneous items stored up in the bases just in case they needed to do something outside of the property which wasn't all that uncommon. The lights were still on here too, funny enough, but Scout was too tired to think anything of it really.

There were a couple of sleeping bags resting on one of the bottom shelves, and he thoughtlessly went to go pick one up.

"Scout-?" a tired voice spoke up behind him, making Scout almost jump out of his skin.

It was a pale looking Engineer holding a box of metal spare parts with a horrified expression painted across his face.

"What in the devil happened to you?!"

Scout was too stunned to speak; he just stared on while clutching the sleeping bag. It took a moment for his mind to register that his teammate was commenting on his face, which was probably just as bloody and bruised as Lyra's had been.

"I thought you were just mailin' a letter!"

"I-I was-" he stuttered stupidly.

"Then what happened?"

Scout continued to stare at him blankly as he struggled to figure out what to say. His tired mind wasn't ready for this. All he wanted to do was be a nice guy and give a hobo a sleeping bag. He stared at the Engineer's concerned face, the same sort of expression his mom used to give him growing up when she worried that he had gotten himself into something he couldn't handle. He remembered how he'd eventually end up breaking down, telling her everything and she'd help sort things out. He was tired, and it was just registering to him that things were going wrong, and he'd be incredibly screwed if he was caught.

He was clutching the case tighter now, and his lips were moving wordlessly. He thought maybe Engie would help if he told him. He may have been a merc like the rest of them, but he was still a good man. He wouldn't hurt an innocent kid, right?

"Some guys- uh- recognized me," was what he said instead.

"My goodness-!"

"Yeah, it was a couple of guys from-what's it called? The Forters-?"

"I knew you should've gone with someone else," he said, looking quite distraught over his teammate's misfortune.

Scout handed him the keys, shrugging as if to say it was no big deal, "Doan worry about it, Engie. I took care of 'em. There were like six of 'em and they ran off lookin' a lot worse than me." He couldn't help but brag a little about the encounter.

"Oh, thanks- Well, I'm glad to see you're back in one piece," he laughed. He tucked the box of metal underneath his arm and gestured toward the sleeping bag he was holding, "So what's that for?"

"Oh-" he looked down at the object as if he was surprised to be holding it himself, "Ah- Snipah asked me to bring him it on the way in. Said it was gettin' too cold foh him in the van and all."

The Engineer nodded in seemingly hazy understanding. "Ah alright," he said, and begun to leave the room, "that's mighty nice of you, Scout. Sorry, you had a rough time. Good night."

"Ah, night!" Scout called after him. Scout sighed in relief as he found himself alone. He took one more look around the inventory and decided to take a small backpack to care the bandages and medicine in along with a flashlight since he figured he wasn't going to be driving back to the shed.

He turned out the lights when he was satisfied with his supplied and slowly made his way to the infirmary. As he passed through the lounge, he noticed that the Frenchman had disappeared. Scout had hoped his teammate had stumbled back into bed, but he proceeded with even more cation. He crept towards the infirmary which to his relief was dark and empty except Medic's small doves sleeping soundly on the shelves.

Scout looked through one of the large medicine cabinets, and immediately found the type of medkit they'd find on the battlefield. He felt instant relief rush over his sore body. He began to consider bringing one of these to Lyra but then thought better of it. He wasn't sure if one of these would work on an outsider, nor did he want to explain how it worked if she were to ask since he figured it'd be best to keep as many of his employer's secrets as possible.

Bandages and disinfectant were the first things he stashed away into his bag, but he had trouble finding cold medicine. He pushed past multiple bottles and other supplies, but it just wasn't turning up. He was starting to worry they didn't have it since if they ever did get sick they usually died and respawned before they could even develop a full blown illness. It took about another ten minutes of rummaging through the cabinet before he came across a small white bottle that read: "RELIEVES COLD AND FLU SYMPTOMS." Before slipping it into his backpack he gave it a slight shaking, finding it to be completely full.

On his way out, Scout could hear the metallic clicks and clangs coming from the garage. The light was on, and he decided to take a quick peek, unsurprised to see the Engineer hammering away at his sentries with the box of metal he'd taken from inventory. He shut the door gently so his teammate wouldn't notice and made his way back into the cold night.

It seemed quieter now, and Scout was beginning to feel unsettled by it. He shined his light up and down the road until he found the trail he needed. He stumbled down the stony path while trying to keep his light steady. His hands were starting to shiver in the freezing air. He walked on in a fairly calm demeanor but as time went on his couldn't help feel there was something wrong. In the silence of the night just seemed to make everything he did louder. His footsteps, for example, sounded as if they were lightly echoing down the trail. He found himself repeatedly stopping to make sure he wasn't hearing a second set of footsteps, but every time he'd stop: pure silence.

Reaching the shed brought him little comfort. He stepped into the darkness and shone his light on a sleeping Lyra; all curled up into a shivering little ball. There was a slight whistle in breathing as if she was struggling for air. Scout quickly unzipped the sleeping bag and threw it over the freezing little creature. The backpack was carefully placed beside her so in the morning she could take care of herself. On his way out he found himself ever so gingerly closing the door and making sure it was sealed tight enough to keep the cold out.

"What am I doing?" Scout laughed to himself as the rush of the night was finally coming down on him. He would've never done so much for someone before; he knew that, but it all felt right- which was funnier to him since he wasn't much for doing the right thing in the first place. It was something in his gut, though, that told him this was important.

The walk home was a little better, for he figured that if something were there in the dark that wanted to hurt him, it would've made itself apparent by now. Although, he couldn't quite bring himself to fully relaxed, years on the battlefield keep one from wanting to let one's guard down. Unlike the night before the world around him remained mostly noiseless. There were no oddly timed bird songs, and the crickets were no longer chirping. Scout tried to find peace in such a state, but he was starting to feel the knots in his stomach.

_Psst-Psst-Psst-_

There was a sound of rustling in the grass beside him, followed by a soft bump.

_What the hell is-_ he didn't even get to finish the thought before a ghostly sound resonated through the air.

_"Oooooooh-"_

Without a moment's hesitation, Scout's feet were immediately moving at full speed down the trail.

_What the fuck?! Shit! Shit! Shit!_ was all he could think as he stumbled over large rocks lying in his path. Was that an animal? Was that human? It didn't matter to him; he just needed to get the hell away from it. The front door to the living corridors couldn't come soon enough. His hands slammed against its surface and he practically tumbled through it. His feet thundered throughout the building as he stormed up the stairs and locked himself in the safety of his room.

Here he caught his breath, and he felt a little at ease. As his mind cleared, he found himself unable to remember what the sound seemed like besides the fact that it had startled him. He began to think that maybe it wasn't so ghastly a sound, and tried to reason that it was some small animal that meant him no harm. Scout laughed at how silly he was being and dropped down into the warm embrace of his bed as he wondered how he'd tell this story to Lyra when he saw her next.

It wasn't long until the exhaustion begun to bring him into a gentle sleep but something had brought him out of it for just a moment. There was an exchange of soft voices that Scout could hear somewhere beyond his room. There wasn't much to it. Scout assumed someone got up, most likely in response to him storming through the house, and ran into Engie on his way to bed. It wasn't really the conversation itself that woke him, he just thought he heard his name.

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Author's Note: Hello again guys! I'd like to thank everyone who is still following this and those who have reviewed this story. I greatly appreciate the feedback even though I don't always respond. I'd also **like to give a special thanks to EnPassant4264 who gave me some very good criticism that I'll try to take to heart.  
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**Next chapter will take awhile, but I feel it would be worth the wait! Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed!**


	9. Chapter 9

The day seemed to follow without further incident. Scout made sure to start the morning bright and early in order to sneak Lyra a little bit of breakfast before his team had even woken up. He pocketed some toast and fruit on his way out the door. Although he wasn't surprised, he was a little disappointed to find the girl still fast asleep. He wanted to talk to her about the sound he heard the night before, and maybe play a card game with her before going back to the base. He nudged her gently to wake her up, but she didn't move an inch. She almost looked dead, with all the dried blood staining her face and the bruises setting in. The fabric where she rested her head had turned a rusty color of brown and parts of it seemingly dried to her face. However, she was still breathing, in these wheezing, small pathetic breaths.

He nudged her again, this one being a little harder than the last. This time he had managed to stir a response as she feebly swatted his hand away and mumbled something unintelligible. He finally took the hint she wasn't in the mood to talk when she rolled away from him, tearing the bloodied sleeping bag off her cheek in the process. Scout placed the food near the backpack but lingered for just a moment longer just in case she woke up and he could talk to her for a little while. Though, she kept on sleeping, and eventually Scout decided it was time to go.

When he got back to the base he found that no one was up yet. The morning ticked by slowly as he waited for his team to be dragged out of their beds by Soldier being too eager to step back onto the battlefield. The men sauntered down the steps, one by one, tired and irritated. Although, surprisingly, no one commented on Scout's unusual earliness. Spy didn't even give him a sideways glace.

Spy, in fact, didn't even speak to Scout throughout the rest of the day. He didn't even acknowledge him when Scout made an obscene joke about the reason Spy was cradling his arm, he just remained in a disgusted silence. The whole thing was very odd, but Scout was glad to be no longer trapped beneath Spy's intensive scrutiny. The Engineer seemed to be acting strangely as well. He was quieter than usual, but not completely silent like Spy. He looked perturbed by something and kept giving Scout these worried little looks. It sort of reminded him of how his mom would look at him and his brothers when she suspected they were getting into trouble.

At one point in the day, Scout found himself alone in the spawn room with the Engineer. Scout was switching out his Force-A-Nature for his Baby Face Blaster when he noticed his teammate hesitantly lingering behind him.

"Need something, Engie?" he asked.

The stocky man flinched upon hearing his words.

"Uh, Scout-" he said almost in a mumble. He continued to stare at him with that worried look until the corners of his lips curled up into a sad, awkward smile.

"Ah, never mind," he chuckled uneasily and went back into the fight. Scout could do nothing but shrug and followed after him once his gear was in order.

* * *

Today the Red team's luck had changed; they had been victorious. The halls of their living corridors were filled with the sound of clattering glass bottles and roaring laughter. Scout kept his beer in the nook of his arm, laughing and joking with his teammates but not drinking with them. He wanted to see Lyra again tonight so he wanted to keep his mind clear so he didn't end up getting lost in the dark or something. He snuck some snacks into his bag when he was sure no one was paying attention to him and as it got later into the night he tried to discreetly pull himself away from the group.

He slyly slipped into the hallway. He didn't even have his hand on the handle before he heard a small voice speak up from behind him.

"Scout-? Where are you goin'?"

It was the Engineer. He was standing in the doorframe of the room where everyone was celebrating.

"Oh hey, Engie- I'm just goin' for a walk- ya know- to get some fresh air."

The Engineer gave him a quizzical look, "But it's so dark outside."

"Ah, I'm not plannin' on goin' that far," he tried to reason, but the Texan moved towards him hesitantly.

"Scout, we haven't seen much of you lately. Is there somethin' wrong?"

There was an unpleasant feeling of dread welling up inside him which he struggled to swallow down and tried to offer a reassuring response, "Of- Of course not, Engie!"

The look the Engineer was giving him made him feel a little guilty, "Then why not spend a little time with your team?"

He looked passed the Engineer and stared at his teammates who seemed to be getting ready for a game as they gathered around a table. Some of them didn't pay them any mind, such as the Demoman and the Soldier who were just drunkenly mumbling between each other, while others like the Heavy and Sniper were peering down the hallway to see what they were up to. Scout felt at this point he couldn't leave without looking suspicious.

"Ha, ya know what? Soire," he sighed in defeat and he followed the stocky man back to the room.

Lyra I'm so sorry, he thought as he envisioned the poor girl shivering and starving in a dark shed. He flashed a pleasant smile at his teammates as he took a seat amongst them. He made a promise to himself that when most of the men had gone to bed he'd be sure to check on her.

"Glad you can join us," Sniper said boredly, shuffling the cards and dealing them out to every member around the table. This had brought something to Scout's attention that he had wished he had noticed earlier. Not everyone was playing the game of course, the Medic and Heavy were having a conversation on the other side of the room. The Engineer was sitting across from him at the table, and Pyro, Demo, Solly and Sniper were sitting all around him- so then-

"Where's Spy?"

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**Author's Note: Sorry for such a short chapter! I know I said the next chapter would be long but it was getting a little too long so I split it up where I felt chapters could end naturally. Next chapter we'll start seeing bits of Lyra's point of view! Thank you guys so much for being patient and supportive of this story. I never intended for this to take as long as it is but I'm glad this story is still going.**

**I hope you guys enjoyed!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Just a heads up, the POV swaps between character's throughout this chapter and I'll admit some of the transitions aren't that smooth. I really hope it's not too jarring for most of you and that you will enjoy reading it.**

* * *

It was maybe the fifth time Lyra had woken up that day not including Scout's morning visit. Her body was sore and aching and her could was wrecking havoc on her respiratory system. She slowly sat up to find the world was completely dark. She groped around the floor until her hands brushed against the rusted surface of the lantern. She fished her lighter from the few things she managed to save in her pockets and held it against the lantern. Her hands gently fiddled with the knobs until her ill-prepared eyes were burning from the sudden flood of light.

She was disappointed to find no sign of Scout making a second visit. The plate he had brought that morning was now empty and the hunger pains were coming back. She rested her head against a now sloppily bunched up sleeping bag, for at some point in the day she felt it was a little too warm to stay curled up beneath it.

To her dismay, she wasn't feeling much better from the cold medicine she had struggled to take in the morning. Although her throat no longer hurt like it did about a week ago, her voice was becoming hoarse again. The air rasped through her lungs, occasionally causing a nasty coughing fit.

She eyed the bottle of pills with a sense of apprehension as she remembered how torturous it was to down a couple of pills without water. She timidly took two of the round yellow pills in the palm of her hand. In one swift movement she tossed them to the back of her throat and managed to swallow them with some trouble. Her esophagus closed tightly around them, slightly bruising it's walls on the way down. She breathed deeply for a few minutes as her stomach churned in response to the whole ordeal.

Lyra flopped back down onto her sleeping bag and waited for the strange boy to return. Even though her illness made her exhausted, her body had enough with sleeping. She stared at the door as wondered what time it was and if Scout would even come back tonight. She stared on for a while, shrouded in mindlessness, until at some point she realized the room was getting a little stuffy. It took her a moment to find the motivation to get up and open the door to let some fresh air in, but her lungs felt refreshed as they were filled with cool outside air. The moon hung high amongst the stars and the landscape what painted in soft shades of grey and dark blue. It was pretty and rejuvenating in a way. She felt at peace as she took in the landscape around, and her lips curled into a smile as she saw a slender figure appear on the horizon.

* * *

"Where's Spy?" Scout asked, struggling to keep even a hint of anxiety out of his voice.

All around the table, his teammates responded with disinterested shrugs, with the exception of the Engineer, who didn't seem to even acknowledge a question had been asked. They all went around the table to cast their bets but Scout stared at the Engineer in an almost pleading way. The Engineer's turn came and while placing a bet of a sizable amount he made eye contact with the frightened boy. He gave Scout a weary, sorry smile.

The blood froze in his veins as Scout realized his worst fears had been confirmed.

"I gotta go to the bathroom-" Scout said, practically bolting up from his chair.

"You can't leave after putting in a bet," the Engineer replied, with a sense of urgency in his voice.

"He's right," the Sniper chirped in, "Sit down."

* * *

Lyra waved to the figure as it drew closer walking down the moonlit path to the shed. It stopped, and moved where it stood in a way that made it look uncertain of what to do next. This behavior struck Lyra a little odd, and made her feel a little uneasy. It began to move down the trail again and as it loomed closer, Lyra's heart stirred violently in her chest as she noticed that the figure coming to greet her was a much taller than Scout.

* * *

"I really gotta go though," Scout whined.

"Too bad," was the Engineer's only response. His lips were now pressed into a thin line as was clearly trying to hide his intentions.

Scout returned to his seat begrudgingly. He kept looking at the Engineer, almost hoping that if looked anxious or desperate enough he'd let him go.

* * *

The horrifying realization struck her immediately. She quickly pushed the door closed and blew out the light in the lantern; although, she knew it was too late to hide. She recalled what Scout had advised her if she was ever caught but she had hoped she'd never be faced with such a situation.

Lyra was not naive enough to believe Scout's advice was not valid. He had pointed a gun at her for Christ's sake, the sounds of screams and gunfire she heard while hiding in that crate still rung in her ears. She had gotten lucky with Scout, she knew that, as well as the fact that she wasn't welcomed on this little hell she stumbled upon.

She wasn't well enough to flee, but was she could she hold her own in a fight? She certainly was last night- but what about now? With her being so sore and weak, how could she hope to do anything?

_Crunch! Crunch!_

The man was close now; his footsteps could be heard approaching the shed.

* * *

Scout spotted a beer bottle to his right, which had given him an idea. As he reached his arm toward the center of the table to show his cards, he intentionally gave the bottle a rough nudge. It tipped over and all of its contents had spilled all over his legs.

"Oh geeze!" He cried. He shot up from his seat and bolted from the table before anyone could say a thing. From the corner of his eye he could see the Engineer rising to his feet and he could hear the stocky man's footsteps pattering after him as he ran and locked himself in the nearest bathroom.

Scout quickly wiped down his pants of the alcohol and the Engineer was already banging on the door.

"Scout-!"

"Would ya mind givin' me some privahcy, Engie?"

His teammate was silent then, but Scout could sense his presence lingering behind the door. Scout started trying to make it sound like he was still cleaning himself up. He was opening and closing the medicine cabinet a couple times and put the water on full blast. He hoped doing all this would distract the Engineer's careful ears as he slid open the bathroom's window.

Screech! Was the sound it made before he could even open it an inch.

"What was that?" There was no fooling the Engineer today, it seemed. The door knob started jiggling as his teammate was desperately trying to stop him from escaping. With all Scout's strength, he pushed up on the window as hard as he could. The sound of the jiggling doorknob was getting more intense.

_Screech! Screech!_ the window went as he pushed and pushed.

"Scout-!" The man on the other side of the door sounded just as desperate as Scout was, "Please talk to me!"

There was a sound like the doorknob had finally given way and the door was opening behind him, but fortunately Scout had managed to push the window half-way open and escaped just in time. His feet hit the ground and he took off running and he did not dare turn back, but he could imagine the Engineer clutching a broken doorknob in his fists as he gawked at an empty bathroom.

* * *

Panicked, Lyra rushed to one of the walls and traced her hands of the gardening tools that hung there. Her hands grasped around a thick wooden handle, and ran her fingers along its side to feel the cold metal head of an ax. Her heart seized in her chest for she understood the kind of damage she could do with it, and whether she wanted to use such a tool. However, before she could decide her moral direction and choose which tool would be more appropriate, there was a sound of snapping twigs that forced her to forget herself. She now held the ax tightly to her chest and in three swift steps had her back pressed against the wall closest to the door frame.

The footsteps were just on the other side of the wall. Her heart beat furiously against her chest as she could hear them draw closer to the door.

_Creek!_ was the sound the door made as it was slowly pushed open, allowing soft moonlight to stream into the shed. Lyra tried to silently eek away from the light as if to be touched by it would burn her alive. She held her breath as she watched a lanky figure hesitantly step through the doorway. It did not dare creep beyond the light, it stood very close to her perhaps just a foot in front of her but it did not seem to sense her presence. Lyra clutched the ax tightly in her hands and shook frightfully where she stood. In utter silence she rose the ax and swung with all the strength she could muster.

"Hello-?" was all the man could say before the head of the ax collided with his skull. He toppled to the floor and the ax fell out of Lyra's hands. A gasp escaped her lips as she realized she knew his voice. She dropped to the ground and scrambled for the lantern.

"No-no!" She murmured in a frantic whisper. Her hands closed around the device and in one _click_ of her lighter she could clearly see Scout's body writhing in pain as the ax protruded from his skull. A blood curdling scream ripped through her throat and she was helpless to a wave of tears.

"Oh god- oh god-" she kept repeating to herself while she watched the suffering boy. She tried to think of a way to fix this, she knew some first-aid from her share of injuries on the road but could she treat a cracked skull, especially without her supplies? Her mind was too exhausted by hunger and sickness that it was near impossible for her to figure out how she could do such a thing.

At some point her body turned her away from the scene so that she wouldn't have to look at it. With trembling hands she began grabbing her things but the shaking was so violent that she couldn't hold them tightly enough to put them away. Her vision was blurred through tears she was trying to hold back and she had broken into a terrible coughing fit where each cough shot a pain through her chest in lungs. In her third attempt at putting away the sleeping bag she collapsed to her knees, trembling all over as she coughed and cried into the warm fabric. She brought herself to look at the dying boy and she was disgusted with herself.

She could not leave him like this. For the past few days he had looked out for her; he had spared her and her first instinct was to walk out on him after driving an ax through his head. Her heart was stirring painfully in her chest as she wondered what had changed her into such a person.

Lyra brought herself to kneel beside Scout. Her shaking hands tried to dress the wound with the utmost gentleness but even the slightest touch elicited the most horrible screams from her patient.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she cried. Her hands and her clothes were being soaked in blood that just wouldn't stop coming. She tried removing the ax from his head but this only made the screams worse. She could not hold the tears back anymore, they begun to stream down her face and would not stop. She knew she was useless. Her breathing became shallow and she was breaking down into a quiet sob. She could not save him.

"I'm sorry- oh god- I'm so sorry," she kept murmuring over him. She had mostly given up. She had mostly reserved herself to crying beside him until he had finally died, but still trying to cling to a shred of hope, she pathetically pressed the wound together in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "I'm so sorry, Scout. I'm so sorr-"

"Oh gawd," a familiar voice spoke up from behind her. Lyra's heart felt as if it had , she turned her head toward the speaker. The was a scrawny boy standing wearily in the doorway.

It was Scout.

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**Author's note: This chapter was fun. Hope you guys enjoyed and hope the constant change in perspective wasn't too jarring. I'll try to get the next chapter up by the second week of December, I'll try to be sooner but I have a lot of end of the semester school work I need to catch up on.**

**Tell me what you guys think of the story so far in the comments! Feedback is much appreciated and thanks so much for reading!**


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